Intervamption

by Kristin Miller

  Apartment Two was on the far side of the complex, nestled under the stairs, its door hidden behind a giant shrub that needed buzzing more than Slade’s scruffy chin. Above their heads, the emergency light was busted into a diamond-shaped shard.

  “Ready for this?” Dylan asked, wide blue eyes glazing with hope.

  “I’m not getting any sexier.”

  Dylan opened her mouth to rebut, or at least that’s what he hoped, when the door opened. Standing in the doorway, in a long black robe with white fringe was a woman shorter than any Slade had seen in his life. Long gray hair pulled tight into a bun at the back of her head. Narrow nose. Pointed chin. Wrinkles at her eyes making her appear both wise and skeptical.

  In her shriveled fingers was an oversized black mug. It read, “Team Jacob,” in big red letters.

  “Meridian?” Dylan asked, as if this Judge Judy imposter could be anyone else. “I’m Dylan. This is Slade.”

  “Blade, you say?” She looked him up and down, moving her whole head instead of her eyes. Like that large, exaggerated movement somehow took less effort. “I’ve seen your movies. You must be that Snipes fellow. Look younger than I’d imagined. A little whitewashed, too.”

  Dylan looked like she was going to correct her. Slade stopped her with a wave of his hand. Arguing with the insane only made you insane. He’d learned that ages ago. “Meridian, may we come in?”

  She giggled, snorting between breaths. “That’s what I just said, or don’t your ears work?”

  Dylan mouthed, “What the hell?” as Slade shook his head and walked inside. The inside of the apartment was as confusing as the woman who lived there. Mismatched rugs covered the floor, overlapping like one was placed on top of another when soiled instead of being cleaned. Porcelain cats sat everywhere, looking at them with black painted eyes. On the mantel. On the floor. The couches. Slade wouldn’t have been surprised if there were porcelain cats cooking dinner and waiting for Meridian in bed. Creepy.

  “Thank you for seeing us on such short notice,” Dylan said, sitting on the edge of a plaid couch. “We only have a couple questions for you and then we’ll be on our way.”

  “Shoot.” She walked into the kitchen. Like Dylan and Slade weren’t there at all. When she returned a few minutes later she was holding a single teacup. “It’s a shame you two don’t want tea, I’ve made a whole pot that’s going to go to waste. Petunia here’ll lap it up though, won’t you, dear?” She petted the white-glossed head of a nearby kitten.

  Dylan’s eyes went global. “I’ll get right to it then. Did someone named David come to see you recently and ask about some scrolls? Within the last month or so?”

  Slade doubted this woman would remember what year it was let alone the fact that someone came to see her.

  “David, yes, I remember a David. Nice young man. Bright red hair. Sweet kid. Petunia took a liking to him, didn’t you, sweetie?”

  “Could you just tell us what you told him? If you remember, of course.”

  “Of many things I am, dear, I’m not forgetful.” She took her sweet time drinking her tea, sip after sip after sip, until the cup was dry. “I told him that woman he was with . . .”

  “Eve,” Dylan prompted.

  “Eve, yes, Eve. I said they wouldn’t last. She has her own role to play in the grand scheme, oh yes she does, but not at his side.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “There’s nothing curious about what’s written in the cards, sweetheart. It’s plain as day. Or night, as it were.”

  “Is that all you told him?”

  “No. Of course not. I told him the war would be over when the Valcdana was completed on Winter Solstice, but it wouldn’t be him going through with it. It’d be you.” She said this like she was talking about the weather. How storms were rolling in, flooding Crimson Bay. How the nights were getting longer and the days were getting shorter. How the rocker on her front porch was getting a squeak. “Don’t know why you two wanted to see me to begin with. You’re wasting time, that’s all. Dragging your feet, the two of you are.”

  “What are you talking about?” Slade asked, picking up a white cat from the armchair and setting it on the ground. “What should we be doing?”

  Her rose-pink lips parted, revealing perfectly white teeth. Stark contrast from the unkempt persona she’d been exhibiting. “You should be spending as much time together as possible, but you know that.” She whispered something to the hollow cat on her lap.

  “Meridian, you said Eve played a role in the grand scheme,” Dylan piped in. “What role would that be?”

  Meridian’s dark eyes shifted from Dylan to Slade. “She’s a pretty one, no denying, but she isn’t too bright. She’ll need looking after, you know.”

  He nodded. “I know.”

  “You don’t need to talk about me like I’m in the next room; I’m right here. And I don’t need looking after. What role does Eve play, Meridian? We need to know. It’s the reason we came. Hell, it’s the reason David came, but all you told him was that Eve wasn’t the one for him. We need things cleared up for us and all you’re doing is making them more muddled.”

  “The answers you seek are staring you in the face, yet you refuse to see them. You’re acting much like the red-headed boy who came to see me . . . what was his name again?”

  “David,” Dylan gritted through clenched teeth.

  “David, yes. First, allow me to say you’re looking for your sample in the wrong place. You’re betting on the Kentucky Derby while studying cockfights. There is a reason the fire-haired fellow stopped feeding at the clinic.”

  “Yeah, he hit the streets,” Dylan butt in.

  “No. He found his own spring of blood that gave him everything he’d ever need. Made him stronger too because that blood came from someone special. Someone who has the purest blood of the mundane race flowing through her veins. Feeding from such a pure source, David found ReVamp’s services unnecessary. Until he needed to protect that well of blood from vampires who wanted to exploit her.”

  “Eve,” Dylan breathed. Knowing eyes set upon Slade. “She was telling the truth. She really let him feed from her.”

  “Second,” Meridian continued in her matter-of-fact tone, “I didn’t tell him that Eve wasn’t the one for him. I told him that she wouldn’t be at his side, and she isn’t, is she?”

  “But that’s only because he came into ReVamp, into my clinic, and sacrificed himself for her because of what you told him, what you led him to believe. He was robbed of all hope. You could’ve at least given him more information so he was better informed.”

  “Part of the plan,” Meridian mumbled. “Just part of the plan. I didn’t see her at his side and she isn’t. That’s all I said. Details come out when the time is right. Not before . . . never before. The fact that he ran with his doubt and paranoia is hardly my fault. Eve will be with someone much blonder, much stronger, though he’ll die a hundred years and again for their love. She deserves that much from a man, don’t you think?”

  “You still never said what role she plays . . .”

  “It’s nearly midnight. The moon is high and bright, the night settling in.”

  Slade checked his watch. Eight thirty p.m. Se-nile. “Meridian, I’d like to know if you could explain something for me.” He unrolled the scroll and extended it to her. She let it hang in midair. Refused to touch the parchment. “Can you explain why a marking like that would be on the bottom of one of the scrolls?”

  She didn’t even glimpse at it. “That’s the easiest question you’ve asked me yet, but you already know the answer. I know you can feel the change coming. And you can see your future setting with the sun. It won’t be long now, Slade, until you complete the cycle your mother and father designed for you.”

  “My mother and father? You knew my parents?”

  “You could say that, yes.”

  “Who were they?” Slade leaned forward. “How did you know them?”

  Meridian smiled and her eyes f
luttered closed. When she opened them again, Slade knew she wouldn’t be giving him the answers he sought. Her face was shadowed, her thin lips pursed tight.

  “Nice try.” Lying wench. Damn her for trying to get a rise out of him. “You wouldn’t know the truth if you heard it on one of your V-Law and Order reruns.”

  “The truth exists whether you want to believe in it or not. Much like good and evil, God and Satan. You’ll learn a lot of things about the truth before your journey is through. Eve will help this woman gain the peace she desires, but for you it will only bring more uncertainty. Your goal is clear, Assassin, but your path is rockier than your attitude.”

  “Boy she’s sure got you pegged with the bad attitude,” Dylan said in the face of his glare. “What’s with the Assassin talk?”

  “You’ve got much talking to do amongst each other, but there’ll be time for that, won’t there. I suppose a few spoilers wouldn’t hurt in the meantime. I call him an Assassin because that’s what he is, darling. And a growing legend, of course.” She tipped her pointed chin at Slade. A kind of honorable acknowledgement he didn’t understand coming from a vamp. “What you have done is legendary, though not impossible, given your split heritage. Had they only known, they would never have sent you.”

  What the hell was this crazy woman talking about? “I’m not following you,” he said. “When you say split heritage, you mean—”

  “I mean, if you dig into your past deep enough, remember your childhood, you’ll know from where you came and it’s not where you think. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a few things left to do tonight and the sun is on the rise.” She stood, made to leave the room.

  Slade grabbed her by the arm. It was strong and muscled. Not the arm of an old woman. He got the distinct feeling many things were not what they seemed. “We’re not leaving yet. I have more questions.”

  She glared at his grip on her arm until he released her. “You have questions. She has questions. Every vampire in Crimson Bay wants something from me because they don’t want to do the hard work themselves. I’m tired of having all the answers. I just want to be left alone.”

  “What about the future?” Dylan asked. “Would you let the vampire race fall into the hands of the therians?”

  “You should be asking the one who’s playing both sides. Ask the one you’ve decided to lie with.”

  In two seconds Dylan and Slade were standing outside in the apartment courtyard, staring at the gray span of Meridian’s door, with no recollection of how they got there. The batty old woman was right—the sunrise was taunting the horizon with shades of pink and orange, tinges of yellow.

  Slade checked his watch. Ten p.m. But the sun was rising! What the hell was going on?

  They’d somehow lost all hours of night with the snap of Meridian’s fingers. It was like her apartment was a spinning vortex, sucking them in with unanswered questions that were always out of fingers’ reach. All the while Meridian sat back with twisted ambivalence, watching them sicken and squirm with motion sickness from the wild ride.

  There was only one explanation . . . mawares. Those barfly whispers and ancient rumors of magic-wielding elders were true. Damn it, he should’ve believed the hype when he saw ReVamp for the first time.

  He’d shrugged off those powers as flamboyant lore or flashy legends meant to scare lesser vampires into worshiping their elders. Now, though, he was certain Meridian couldn’t have known as much as she did without dark magic. And she’d used her trickery to slow time so much they now had to haul ass back to their haven to beat the sunrise.

  “Well that was fun,” Slade huffed, chucking his watch into an overflowing waste bin. “Like being ejected from a psychotic merry-go-round.”

  After a long pause Dylan mumbled, “Was she telling the truth about you being an Assassin?”

  “Yes.” Cold as ice. The only way to shoot such admissions.

  The walkway back to her Jetta suddenly seemed like a never-ending death march. He picked up his pace, determined to get her back to the haven in one un-tanned piece.

  “I thought you told me you were assigned to find the scrolls?” she asked, running to catch up.

  “I was. Right before I was clued in to find my next mark.”

  “How could you do that? Become one of us, befriend us, become a part of the khiss, then pick us off one by one? Is that how it works with you?” Her voice cracked.

  “I didn’t know it would get this complicated. The only thing I can do now is move forward.”

  “Moving forward doesn’t mean the past never existed. How many vampires have you killed in your work? Ten? Twenty?”

  He met her eye to eye. “More.”

  Tears lined her lashes but she somehow kept them from falling. “It’s like every time I find out something more about you, I realize I don’t know you at all.”

  Damn, he could use a stiff drink. Heart-to-hearts made his patience dry up faster than fuel in a gas guzzler, and he was already running on empty. “You’re absolutely right, Dylan. You don’t know shit about me. Can we go now?”

  “Is it really that hard to let me in?” she fumed. “Have you been closed off for so long that you can’t even tell me who you really are or where you came from? I only want to get to know the man I’ve let into my bed.”

  “I can’t tell you much about my past because there’s not much I know.” Each word spewed off his tongue heated. “I was a damn good Assassin before I fucked up a critical mission and was kicked out of the only type of family structure I knew. I never knew my parents and I don’t have any other family. Are you happy now? Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  Chewing on the side of her lip, Dylan passed him, storming back to the Jetta with a stubborn pound in her step.

  Slade had enough to worry about without adding Dylan’s incessant curiosity to his plate. She shouldn’t have been pissed; he told her all he knew, for Satan’s sake. The simplest parts of his life weren’t only a mystery to her . . . they remained a mystery to him. If he could believe anything Meridian said—and he still didn’t know if he could—she knew his parents.

  Now he knew something in his past held the key to his future. The couple of scattered memories he had were incoherent snippets that time had fuzzed over like a black and white television snowstorm. It was high time to start picking apart the shambles and piecing them together.

  Dylan was two steps away from her car when Slade sensed a close therian presence. A big black dog darted from another overgrown shrub, stopping in the middle of his path, its eyes wiser than a dumb mutt’s should’ve been.

  Slade made no move to cover his fangs. But he hid the scrolls behind the width of his thigh. “Get lost, pup. Go back to your master and tell him Slade had mercy on you this time. Next time you won’t be so lucky.”

  As he walked around the dog, giving it a respectable distance it did nothing to deserve, it growled.

  Shit. If this canine got wind of Dylan, or if she decided to come over and yap at him some more, things were going to shoot from bad to worse fast. If he snapped this thing’s neck he’d be killing one of his own. An innocent fucker who was probably just obeying his Sheik’s orders. Slade didn’t like lowering himself to an honor-less SOB, but what choice was the mutt leaving him?

  “Easy there, Spot. I don’t want to snap the jugular out of your neck for no good reason. These are new threads and I’d hate to dirty them with blood stains. Why don’t you go trotting your merry way and I’ll go mine.”

  The dog sniffed the air, the walkway, no doubt catching wind of another vampire in the vicinity—of Dylan.

  Without blinking, without thinking, Slade cocked back and kicked the therian right in the gut, sending the pup flying to the wall. It hit the ground with a shudder.

  Dylan rounded the back of the car, staring at Slade with a storm of emotions ranging from anger to shock. Yeah, he could imagine how the scene played out for someone on the outside looking in. He’d just punted an innocent dog like a football for all sh
e knew.

  “What the hell are you doing, Slade? Have you lost your ever-lovin’ mind?”

  He put up a hand to stop her from coming closer. It didn’t work. Figures, the stubborn woman.

  “Dylan, get in the car. It’s not safe,” he said, pushing her back. “It’s not what it looks like, it’s a therian.” When he turned around to point at the therian lying on the ground against the wall, it was gone.

  Shit. He was too late. His hesitation had put Dylan in danger. He should’ve been at her side, not ten paces behind where he couldn’t protect her. He was beside her in a flash.

  “You have to get out of here. Now.”

  He grabbed her by the arm to escort her to her Jetta, when he froze. A big bastard was leaning against it, smoke-black hair, beady coal eyes, too much Cool Water aftershave.

  “I think you looked better the way you were before, brother,” Slade said, pushing Dylan safely behind him.

  Bastard spoke up, a gristly howl on the predawn air. “I have a message for you from Moses. He said you’d know what it meant.”

  “Out with it then.”

  “He said you have until tomorrow night, the longest night of the year, to complete your task. It needs to be done by midnight.” Bastard took two leisurely steps forward. “Or he’ll send someone else to finish the job.”

  Slade could feel Dylan’s heart racing against his back, could hear fear in the panting breaths hitting the back of his neck.

  “You tell Moses that in case he’s forgotten, I don’t do ultimatums. And I never fail.”

  “You know,” he said, moving closer still. “It’s getting darn close to daybreak and you two are moseying about like young lovers on a night hike. I wonder who Moses would get to cover your assignment if someone, I don’t know, killed you before you could make your mark? I wonder if they’d automatically gain your status?”