“I guess I didn’t think like that.”
“It could be a simple problem of jealousy or common rage that might occur anywhere in the country between vampires or humans. The human foibles that merge into the vampire body destroys many. While vampires can live forever, many do not because they fall to human emotions. These particular vampires you’re mixing with own part suppliers to defense manufacturing companies. So the ramifications of this murder can quickly spiral. As for the officer’s comment to you, knowing yet another human has seen behind the curtain, how the magic show is made, makes some vampires nervous.”
I didn’t know what to say, “I hadn’t thought it through like that.”
He looked at me closely, “Be careful. I see you’re doing well after this morning’s attack at your apartment.”
“So you went to my apartment too?”
“My reason for being late getting here. But I finished.” He walked around the house with me, “Have you seen Garin’s Uncle Tremper?”
“No. We used his red truck after the attack Up North destroyed Garin’s car.”
“Uncle Tremper is missing, like Bethany’s father.”
“Bethany’s dad is missing?”
“Yes, another facet of this project I’m still looking into.” He opened his car door, “Let me drive you to the station. Garin is being released. And you’re not safe.”
“I don’t really know you –”
“Good you are wary of strange vampires. Too bad that didn’t hold for getting involved with vampires at the beginning.” he motioned with his open palm for me to get in. “You’ll be safe. At least safer with me than any of the others here.” He slammed the door and walked around, falling into his seat, “I won’t bite.”
We drove to the police station in downtown Livix, an excursion that took less than three minutes to cross the vast metropolis.
“Now stay in the car. I’ll be right back. You can play with the radio if you want – keep the volume reasonable.”
Branoc returned with Garin in tow and handcuffed. Branoc quietly unlocked the cuffs as he put Garin in the back seat. Then Branoc backed his car into the street and after a few stop signs we drove on the main road.
We pulled up to the front of Garin’s house.
“Now.” Branoc said, “I need you two to stay low for a while. I’ve got a lot of work to quiet this down with the regular police. But we’ll figure out what’s going on. Keep your eyes out and let me know if anything odd happens.” he gave us both his business cards.
“It’s all odd,” I said, “Will it stop being odd?”
“It won’t stop,” Branoc said, “But don’t get discouraged or give up. These events are frightening even to me and I have a lot of years and have seen plenty of weird dastardly plans including wars. Whatever is going on is threatening both humans and vampires. Bad stuff.”
“Thanks for the pep talk,” said Garin.
We got out of the car and plodded to the door. Branoc and his car disappeared on the main road.
Garin flopped on the couch. He stared out the window. I went around the house and locked all the doors and windows. Not that doing so would help us against a vampire attack. But I felt better doing it.
“You expect as a vampire … ” Garin continued after I sat next to him, “you expect that everyone will live forever. Unchanging. Other than adapting to new technology and the external world that you can keep the people close to you alive and together and the same.”
“I’m not sure I want to live forever,” I revealed, even to myself.
“You’ve been thinking about that a lot lately?”
“Yes,” I put my hands against my face. My hair ribbons brushed my wrist.
“What about growing old?” he asked.
“That’s what people do if they are lucky.”
“Have you looked at being old? Really looked?” Garin edged closer.
“Yes. I remember being ten and thinking how old twenty year old people seemed. Then again at twenty I think those at forty are pretty old.”
“What do you think the people in their eighties think of you at twenty?”
“I don’t know.”
“My Uncle showed me once. He pointed to an eighty year old friend of his confined to a bed at home. He went from a crawling child exploring his crib in the living room to running around the fenced back yard. As a teen he learned to drive a car and drove everywhere. He went away to war and observed the world from the deck of a Navy battleship. He came home and supervised a manufacturing plant. Later he retired –”
“An active mostly normal life, I guess.”
“Yes. A normal life.” Garin leaned toward me. “This retired friend of his took up gardening. The yard he’d played in when five became filled with exotic plants and produce that he either sold at the local market or gave away to his neighbors. But as the years wore on, arthritis crippled his joints, his skin became thinner and tore on the raspberry bushes too easily. His garden became more lawn and less produce. Then one year his whole garden extended only as far as six pots of tomatoes and a dwarf apple tree. The decline became more rapid and he couldn’t move so well. His garden became a few bean plants on the window sill that a friend’s grandson gave him, leftover from a school project. He hired the neighbor kids to run their mower around the yard. Then no plants grew on the window sill next to his now confining medical bed set up in his living room. In the end, the world of his friend had come full circle. From the confines of a crib to lands far away and then back to the confines of another crib in that same room.”
“Oh that’s so sad!”
“But that’s not the life of a vampire.”
“How come your Uncle didn’t make a vampire out of his friend?”
“Too many people to save. You want to save them. You have to draw a line at family and within the confines of the vampire laws. Any vampire made is a predator. Too many lions and the zebras don’t last.”
“It comes back to True Love, doesn’t it?” I said.
“How else would you know you want to be with them forever?”
“I’m sure its fun for the first hundred years but what then?”
“The first hundred years is only the beginning.” His eyes looked intense, “Turn it around: why be a vampire if not for True Love – of something? Either obsessively loving another or for love of power and control or love of adventure. To keep at such a project a person must be durable and the route of a vampire is the most durable of all. Vampires get obsessive because they don’t live long if they are not.”
“I can see how a vampire that doesn’t care wouldn’t live long. Neither do humans.” I waved my hand, “Have you found your obsession?”
“Yes.” He put his hands to the sides of my face. “I found you.” he kissed me, “You are my obsession.”
“I still don’t think living forever is right or what I want.”
“So you’ll deny me forever?”
“It’s my choice.”
“Maybe I’ll be able to convince you differently,” he kissed me again.
“Maybe.”
“We’ve got time anyway.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You’re twenty.”
“ – And?”
“ – And you can’t be turned into a vampire until you’re twenty-one.”
“It’s like going to the bar?”
“In a way. That’s how the age laws got set for the drinking age in Michigan.”
“No, really?”
“When do people get their wisdom teeth?”
“Eighteen to twenty-one, I guess.”
“A human can’t be a vampire until all their teeth are present – and they have the wisdom to choose. It also solves the problem with considering child vampires. An abomination if that could happen.”
“So twenty-one is the drinking age in more ways than one –”
Garin’s cell phone rang, he looked at the display, sighed and answered it, “Hello? … Ok, tha
t sounds about right … Yes, I agree that’s not a strategic business unit … I’m at my house … Yeah. If you want to stop by I can sign the paperwork … Ok.”
“Who was that?”
“Yashar, he’s the Chief Financial Officer for my Mother’s, I guess now my, businesses. He has some paperwork for me to sign. He’s bringing it over on his way to the bank.”
A knock came at the door.
“Quick,” I said.
“Small town and he told me he drove nearby on some other errands.” Garin got up and opened the door. “Hi, come on in. This is Anna.”
“Thanks for helping me take care of this. I’m so sorry about Thyia. But we’ve been working on this for a long time and it continues to hemorrhage cash. The buyer seems like he’s losing interest at the original price. We can’t take the hit if we go back out and the market reprices it nor lose time in the market finding another buyer.”
“Yes, yes. Let me see the paperwork.”
“Here.”
Garin walked to the kitchen table and spread out the sections of the contracts.
I asked, “What business is it?”
Yashar said, “It’s an injection molding resin filler plant.”
“What is its name? I’m not familiar with injection resin plants.”
“Beautiful Molding Compounds.” He pulled a chair out for me and another for himself. Garin stood and leaned on his arms scrutinizing the paperwork. “Beautiful makes fillers for plastics. A lot of plastics use talc.”
“Like baby powders or deodorants?”
Yashar said, “Same materials but usually used in things like ball point pen caps. Or kitchen sink wash tubs. Or toothbrush handles. Plastic is expensive so these compounds can replace the plastic while still giving a serviceable product. Some materials, and Beautiful specializes in them, actually bind with the plastic and increase its strength and toughness.”
Garin said, “It’s a little more involved than that, technically, but that’s probably good for now. It helps tailor the products for any variety of engineered properties.” He took some sheets and slid them aside.
“There are some tags and highlighter marks where you need to sign,” Yashar suggested.
Garin seemed satisfied and whisked his pen across several sheets signing his name. He jotted his initials in a few other locations. “There you go.” He slid the papers back to Yashar.
“Thanks.” he stood and went to the door, “I’ll let you get back to your day. And again I am sorry about your mother. She is sorely missed by the executive team at the plant already.”
Later I asked Garin, “How did Yashar know about your mother?”
He suggested, “I guess the newspaper could have heard since they keep up on the police radio channels.”
“But really quick.”
Garin stared out the window again, “I don’t know, somebody’s Twitter or Faceplate follower? He tried calling my mother at the house and learned on the phone?”
“Maybe.” I bit my lip.
-:- Fourteen -:-
I fell asleep on the couch and when I awoke Garin had left. I searched the house getting more frantic the longer I couldn’t find him. I sought the carriage house when I heard grinding and clicking of a chain fall. Something heavy lifted or lowered. I pushed through the door.
A maelstrom of car parts filled the garage. Fenders and seats and glass panels. Chunks of broken twisted axles and flattened wheels. A whole front section of a car sawed off with piles of debris stacked on it. The back wall held racks of tools and a huge rolling tool chest. A four-tube florescent light cast harsh shadows with its cold ghostly glow over the open space in the center of the garage surrounded by the dismembered and twisted car parts. Three domed spot lights clutched the edges of the skeleton car body like vultures leering with baleful beams into the engine compartment. I could only guess at what carrion they might fight over in there.
Garin lowered the engine and transmission through the engine bay spinning the chain fall carefully to inch the chunk of metal between hoses and wiring and other bits in the engine compartment. Pushing and pulling the engine or the interfering components with a practiced hand. He wore a smudged and ripped t-shirt and an older pair of jeans. I could see parts of his chest and torso through the cotton rents. What is it about muscle, the faint smell of gasoline and engine oil, and heavy steel? I walked up to him and slowly slid my hands under his shirt and around his stomach. He turned and kissed me. He pulled off his gloves and where I momentarily worried they might be greasy I found them clean.
I pushed off his shirt and kissed him hard.
He picked me up and carried me over near the wall of tools and ripped open a box. The scent of new leather burst forth. He yanked out a long seat cover and tossed it like a blanket on a bench seat from a van or something that he used as a couch in here. Stacks of clean gear sets in neat stacks filled the top of the low coffee table sized stand in front of the bench. Garin set me on the bench and followed me back as I lay out on the seat cover. The strong scent of new leather filled the air like swimming in a new purse. I kissed him hard again. He kissed my collar bone and down my chest where my blouse opened. He pushed up my blouse and bra. I lifted my arms above my head as he slid the blouse off and draped it on the gears. I brought my hands back and put them to his chest and then his shoulders to draw him to me.
He cupped one breast with his hand and kissed me above my heart then he progressively circled my breast with his kisses and flicks of his tongue. His other arm had found the small of my back and my body responded by lifting out of my control. My eyes fluttered and I pinched them tight as the sensations spread throughout my body. I moaned. I ran my fingers into his hair as he moved. His kisses left a trail of pleasure from my breasts, down across my belly, and then the button on my jeans released. He lifted my feet and pulled my pants over my ankles. My stomach quivered and my breath shallowed. I opened my eyes to see his locked with mine. Deep black. Irises rimmed thin like at night – drawing me to him. He ran a slow hand from my ankle passed my knee. He kissed the warm spot on the back of my knee. My eyes half closed and I moaned again as his kisses and touch crept deeper across my inner thigh. Almost. More. Closer. I willed his movements.
Then his lips left my inner thigh and skipped to my breast and then under my jaw by my ear and to my lips. I pulled on his back crushing us together. I ran my hands down the sides of his body from his abs and to his pants. I fiddled with the button and zipper on his jeans. He moved. One of his arms ran behind and across the small of my back. I don’t know how but I felt the short fuzzy hairs of his inner forearm moving across my seemingly overly sensitive lower back. His bicep hard and knotted against my side. His other arm cut diagonally across my back and his fingers ran up the back of my neck and into the nape of hairs at the bottom of my scalp. He lifted me. I floated.
His body warmed. Like sunbeams against and around my skin where he touched me. I melted knowing now of helpless abandon. I couldn’t think. I didn’t care. I pushed and pulled at him. His hands moved again, wonderful dexterity that knew of their own about building. Assembling sensation on sensation. A torch that knew of cutting and welding. His touch molding me from one construct to another. Adding and building. Leather and fuel and his scents filled my breaths that came rapid and matched my increasing heartbeats. My moans came uncontrolled. My chest bursting with my heart pounding in my ears. My being reached for the light. The sunbeams. And like the surf crashing on the shore everything crested and broke. The whole of us smashed out into the grains of shell and sand. The smoothness returning to the gritty world dispersing our sensuousness into the soaking sand.
I reached for his head and kissed his lips. We held each other for a long while.
“You took your watch off to work on the car?”
“Yes. I’ve smashed some others.”
I hadn’t seen Garin without his watch since that first night at the park. The Anime drawing of the two heroes fighting back to back against unknown encroachin
g evil now blurred and fading. “Will we get through this before that drawing completely disappears?”
“I hope so.”
I hugged Garin tighter.
A crunch of tires came from the driveway along with squeaking brakes and a delivery van door sliding aside. Heavy boots thumped on the porch and the doorbell chimed.
Garin pulled his pants on and slipped his shirt over his head and shook it down as he slid through the door to the house. I picked up my scattered clothes and dressed. I sat on the new leather draped couch when he returned.
“WareWulf Logistics Delivery.” he said, dropping a box on the floor next to a torn fender. I could see a blazing logo for Advanced Aura Coating Technologies on the cardboard.
“What’s in the box?”
“Paint for the car.” He sat down next to me. Putting an arm around me and drawing me close. I liked the comfort. “A nano tube paint mix – super durable and gives that nearly magical sheen you saw that changes with the light.”
“This draws you?”
“What do you mean?”
“What draws you to this work? Is it distracting or something else?”
“Distracting. A lot of stuff to work through lately.”
I squeezed him with my arms.
“It’s the little things when you work on these machines. A certain magic or art and beauty to it. Sometimes you’re in there fighting and cracking your knuckles against unyielding edges. But in the unexpected moments you pull back the tight fitting facade of a trim ring. Like around a headlight assembly. You see an area where fifty separate designs for stampings and plastics and wire and glass needed tooling yet fit flawlessly together. A hundred people assembled these pieces that another fifty had designed and tested to ensure it functions correctly in extreme environments. And that’s around a headlight. Imagine those same tasks being carried out for every component and system in the car. A whole design studio working for weeks scraping clay to get the shape of that fender. Or this gear –” He leaned forward and lifted a small gear off the low table in front of us. “The width of this chunk of metal, the complex shape of the teeth so they mesh correctly, are designed over days using math figured out in the Renaissance based on work the ancient Greeks started centuries ago. Someone checked the resulting models to ensure the teeth don’t break under service loads. Tools are cut. Parts are made. Vehicles are driven for months on arduous test tracks determined to prove the part will survive a normal consumer.”
One Night Burns (The Vampires of Livix, #1) Page 14
