by Karen Ranney
“My grandfather founded the OTHER.”
Maybe more than a little.
I folded my arms, wishing I weren’t so damned cold. This bone deep chill had nothing to do with external temperature and everything to do with being afraid. There was a certain inevitability to Dan’s explanation.
I’d known there was something different about him from the beginning. Now I knew what it was.
He was my enemy.
I expected the bars to come down on the windows any second. Or my door to be remotely locked. Maybe a cage would descend from the ceiling. Here’s where I’m led to my cell, transfused, and the studies began.
Except I wasn’t quite as helpless as I’d once been and the scenario didn’t make any sense.
“Why?”
“Why didn’t I tell you?”
“No, why offer me a safe house? Why insist on accompanying me around San Antonio?”
I wouldn’t have stood a chance if I’d returned to my townhouse on my own without knowing everything. I’d thought, at the time, that my only enemy was Maddock. I had no idea that the entire world was gunning for me. Okay, maybe not the whole world, but a major segment of it.
Why not put me in manacles and do whatever they’d planned? For that matter, why had the Librarian let me leave?
What was I missing? What were they waiting for?
“So, what are you going to do?” I asked, proud that my voice didn’t quaver.
“Do? Nothing. Keep trying to protect you.”
“Why, if you’re for one world order and all that jazz?”
He bent and scratched between Charlie’s ears, talking to him softly. He straightened, leaned over, and turned on the light.
Me? I preferred the darkness. If I couldn’t see something, I wasn’t afraid of it, and at this moment I was very much afraid of Dan.
“You know the old saying about keeping your friends close but your enemies closer? I know what the OTHER is doing because they trust me. Plus, I have people in the organization.”
“Just like you have people following me.”
To his credit, he didn’t deny it. All he did was lift Charlie’s dangling leg and sit on the end of the chaise.
“I told you my father died. What I didn’t tell you was my grandfather got it into his head that it had something to do with my mother being a witch.”
“Did it?”
He shook his head. “No. It was an accident. An icy road, an overpass, and he’d had one or two beers. Because my mother was with him and survived, my grandfather blamed her. He decided he didn’t want his grandchildren to have a witch bloodline.”
I frowned at him. “My mother isn’t a witch. My grandmother said that it wasn’t a hereditary vocation. You had to have some talent in the art.”
“My grandfather either didn’t know that or didn’t believe it. He disliked the thought of his offspring being anything but fully human. At first, he wanted to invent a cure for the witch taint, but when the vampires were made public, he realized that humans could easily be outnumbered.”
“So that’s when he became a if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em kind of guy.”
“In a way,” he said.
I moved over to the bed and sat at the end of it.
“He wanted to know if things could be reversed. Could you change someone from a vampire back to a human? Could a witch be stripped of her powers?”
“Could they?”
He shook his head. “Not that he’d discovered.”
“Where does the Librarian come in?”
He shook his head. “An affectation Mary uses. She’s a good researcher and my grandfather hired her to learn everything he could about vampires and witches.”
“Did he know about the rest of the Brethren?”
He shook his head again. “Not at the time.”
“So, are the Angelus Chronicles something she just made up?”
“No, they’re real. She didn’t discover them until after my grandfather died.”
“You’ve read them, haven’t you?” I asked, certain of it.
“Yes,” he said. “She sent me a copy of everything she gave you.”
“I’ll bet your grandfather would have thought I was the answer to a prayer,” I said.
“He would have destroyed you. Instead, he let his obsession destroy him.” He smiled, but the expression held no humor. “He wanted to save humanity and he ended up stripping himself of what made him human. He became a monster.”
“Why haven’t I been locked away?” I asked. “Stuck full of needles and drained of my blood?”
I’d given up the battle to sound unfazed by his revelations. My voice was noticeably affected and I gave away my fear by trembling. My fingers were clenching my arms so tight I might give myself bruises. Lucky me, I was a vampire and healed fast.
“Bureaucracy is probably the reason for the delay.”
“Bureaucracy?”
“The OTHER isn’t controlled by one person, but a congress of people. Someone probably needs to get all the signatures on a document or something.”
“And when that happens?”
“They’ll send me word. They want to use my lab facilities,” he said. “Begin with giving a volunteer a transfusion from you.”
I was so cold I could barely move.
“So what happens when you get the go ahead?” I asked, proud that I could still talk.
“We go into lockdown.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve begun fortifying the castle for when they make a move. They can’t do anything overtly, but they can be a nuisance. They’ll try to hack our communications, but we’re connected to a satellite. They can’t touch our water supply since we’ve built underground cisterns and we’ve put in enough food for two years.” He grinned at me. “Even stuff for S’mores.”
“I don’t understand.”
I pushed down the sudden, buoyant relief I felt. I couldn’t get ahead of myself in the celebration department.
He studied me for a minute.
“My grandfather was willing to do anything to achieve his aims. He would have sacrificed any number of people. He wasn’t any better than the Nazis with their medical experiments.”
His green eyes were sincere and direct. I would give fifty of my vampire years to believe him.
“Life isn’t fair sometimes, Marcie, but we can’t play God. I can’t. You can’t. My grandfather didn’t learn that lesson. The OTHER aren’t interested in learning it.”
The chill was leaving me. Some part of me was believing him. Worse, I wanted to trust him. It would be nice to have someone watch my back from time to time. Not always, just once in awhile.
He clasped his hands together between his widespread knees.
“So you and Mike and your men aren’t members of the OTHER?”
He shook his head.
“Then what are you?”
“Nothing that we’ve announced,” he said. “Nothing formal. We haven’t incorporated, if that’s what you mean.”
“Are you a witch?”
He smiled again. “I have no talent in the art,” he said, repeating my words. “It’s why my grandfather left his fortune to me. I was the one person in the family who was normal.”
“So your sister is a practicing witch?”
He nodded.
“I don’t get why you’ve prepared for a siege. Did you know someone like me was going to show up?”
“Being prepared is part of my personality,” he said. “I’ve got all sorts of contingency plans.”
“You didn’t use a condom in the gun range.”
I wanted to freeze that look on his face, or take a picture of it because it wasn’t often that I both startled and embarrassed Dan.
I took pity on him and asked him the question that had been bugging me.
“How do they know that transfusing my blood into someone else would give them my abilities?”
“They’re willing to try.”
; “Who decides? Do they get rid of all the witches first? Or work on plain humans? Who gets to make that choice?”
“They’re all for ridding the world of prejudice by making everyone the same, Marcie. Political correctness gone amok. It doesn’t matter to them who’s first.”
“MEDOC,” I said.
He frowned at me.
“You’ve looked for your sister at Maddock’s homes. Try his labs. He’s trying to create women like me.”
His frown deepened.
“He’s not unlike your grandfather, trying to create his own bloodline. I would bet you money Maddock believes he can sire a child born of a witch mother, or someone with witch bloodlines. It’s not as fast as impregnating me, but it’ll do in a pinch. He’s got the time. Vampires have nothing but time on their side. I’d also bet that all of your missing people are women and they’re all related to witches.”
He stared at the opposite wall for a minute, then stood.
“I hope to God you’re wrong,” he said.
We looked at each other. I think we both knew I was probably right.
“What happens now?” I asked.
“We finish our preparations, be vigilant about where you go.”
“Does that mean I’m a prisoner in the castle?”
“I’d feel better if you remained inside,” he said.
When Dr. Stallings called, I was going to make that appointment. A hysterectomy was the only way I could protect myself completely.
“I’m accumulating enemies at a scary rate,” I said.
Unfortunately, the jury was still out about him. Could I trust Dan the way I wanted to?
“Look at it this way, they were always your enemies, but you didn’t know. Forewarned is forearmed.”
I smiled at his point.
When he walked to the door I didn’t try to stop him. I’d learned a lot tonight, but none of it made me feel better. I closed the door, turned the deadbolt and stood leaning agains the door for a minute.
“Align yourself with the witches,” Opie said.
I turned to face Charlie.
“They’re the only group that doesn’t have something to gain by capturing you. The vampires might want to walk in the sun or eat some foie gras. The humans might think it’s cool to have vampire and witch talents without having to change from being humans. The witches just want to be left alone to do their thing. You don’t pose a problem for them as yourself, only if the OTHER or Maddock gets his way.”
Then, as if being advised by a golden retriever wasn’t odd enough, Opie grinned at me. I stared at her for a moment, remembering her beautiful red hair. What a pity she wasn’t an Irish Setter.
“Got any kibble?” she asked.
Was three thirty in the morning too early to call the kitchen? I was debating that question when Opie rolled over and spread her legs, revealing Charlie’s testicles in all their glory.
She was most definitely a he.
Of all the problems I had, however, pronouns were the least of my worries.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Come, my little vampire, said the spider to me
I had a sleepless night, but it was a productive one. I started making lists, which led to diagrams, which led to a few conclusions.
If the witches feared me for what I could become to them, then it made sense that they’d want me gone, dead, dispatched. I bet they were behind the explosion at Hermonious Brown’s book store. I also bet that the women in the bakery next door were witches. Had they been following me or had they simply realized who I was the minute I stepped into Ye Olde Bookshoppe?
Was I wearing some sort of witchy amulet?
I looked at the pendant my grandmother had given me. I wasn’t sure it would fend off a vampire as much as it signaled who I was. Before I sent them a Marcie alert, I needed to make sure that Nonnie’s sisters of the faith knew I wasn’t a danger.
I didn’t want the world to be a huge melting pot of people, especially if I was the broth to make that particular soup.
Just to be safe, I took off the pendant and stuck it in the drawer of the end table.
I didn’t know any members of the human-only groups, organizations like the Militia of God, the Council of Human Creationism, and NAAH, the National Association for the Advancement of Humans. I wasn’t going to take my chances contacting them, either. I had a feeling they’d stake me in the sun before they listened to me. Of course, that wouldn’t work, but they’d find another way to end my vampire life, I’m sure.
Could I find an ally in the vampire community? Kenisha came to mind, but the more I thought about it, the more I dismissed the idea. I was, like Charlie/Opie had intimated, a temptation to the vampires. Who wouldn’t want to walk in the sun, eat anything they wanted, and still have the healing power and longevity of being a vampire?
That left only the witches.
As much as I wanted to believe everything Dan said, I still had pockets of doubt. The one thing going in his favor was the past. Every one of his actions had been to protect me, not imprison me. He’d taken care of my car when it had been shot full of holes. He’d rescued me when I’d escaped Maddock’s house. Any man who’d stopped to care for Charlie couldn’t be evil.
Okay, maybe I did feel that living at the castle was a form of five star prison. Still, he hadn’t refused to allow me to leave, only insisted that I had a bodyguard. One that I knew about and others that I hadn’t seen. I wondered how many people were delegated to watch over me during the day. For that matter, how many witches did?
Right at the moment I was alone with Dan, his men, and maybe the witches in our corner if I could convince them that I posed no threat. In sheer numbers we were overwhelmed, but we had something nobody else had: information and me. Oh, and a ghost dog.
Stop me if I start the victory dance too soon.
When the phone call came, I recognized the number right away. I didn’t want to answer, but I had to. I had a task to complete, the last way to make sure I was safe from Maddock.
That was the thing about being a grownup. You had to do a lot of things you didn’t want to do, like laundry or cleaning toilets. Like getting enough sleep and enough exercise and watching your cholesterol levels. Although, ever since I’d become a vampire I didn’t have to worry about the last three and the first two were taken care of by Dan’s staff, invisible maids or elves who straightened up after me and pampered me to heck and back.
Speaking of which, I was hungry.
First, however, I had to answer the phone.
"Marcie?"
It wasn't often that Dr. Stallings called me herself. When she did, it was always with bad news, something she didn't want to relegate to one of her staff. I stared at the ceiling, trying not to remember those other conversations that started with the words, “I’m sorry, Marcie…”
This time, however, she said, “Marcie, we’ve finished our tests.”
"Oh." Am I a conversationalist or what?
"I think if you're certain this is something you want to do, we could perform the operation."
I immediately wanted to tell her no, it wasn't something I wanted to do. Once they removed my uterus, there went any thought of ever bearing a child. But that decision had been made the moment I awoke in the VRC, hadn't it?
"Yes," I said, the single hardest word I’d ever uttered. "Yes.” Saying it twice didn’t make it easier.
“I’d like to see you today, then.”
“It doesn’t need to be this week.” The minute I said the words, I realized I was backpedalling.
“We just need to do the pre-op tests. You’re going to handle this independently?”
The question, as plebeian as it was, reassured me. If Dr. Stallings was concerned about being paid, then the world was still on its axis.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll be writing a check.”
“I have a full day, but I can fit you in at four.”
The days were getting shorter. It would be nearly dark by five thirty, a dange
rous time. Maddock would be stirring and so would his minions.
“Nothing earlier?”
“You can come at three and I’ll try to work you in.”
“I’d prefer a morning appointment,” I said.
“I don’t want to leave this, Marcie. We need to discuss some things.”
“Is there something wrong?” Had she found something odd in my tests? Other than being a super vampire, that is?
“No, I just want to discuss some things with you.”
“Can’t we do it over the phone?”
“No, I’d prefer not to.”
When I was human, I would never have argued with a doctor. They could make me wait for hours for an appointment, a return phone call, a prescription, and I would be endlessly grateful, regardless. Now, however, Dr. Stallings’ demands seemed a little autocratic, something I probably wouldn’t have recognized in my human form.
“All right,” I said.
But even as I spoke I made a vow to myself. If I was waiting too long, I’d leave. I wasn’t going to be there when darkness fell.
I took Charlie to the yard, watched as he did his thing, and tried not to put myself in Opie’s place, sniffing the ground to find the best place. Being a vampire, even a weird one, was looking better and better.
I hadn't told Dan about Opie yet. Frankly, I was at a loss on how to broach the subject. "Oh, Dan, by the way did you know that my dog is also possessed by a ghost? The very woman my mother killed thinking it was me."
Ever since I had “heard" Ophelia I'd racked my brain trying to figure out where she’d been in the guise of Charlie. What, exactly, had she seen? Call me super modest but I really don't like undressing in front of another woman. I don't even like dressing rooms in stores. I would much rather guess at my size and then return the garment if it didn't fit. That’s why I love online shopping.
“Would you like me to take him to the kennel for you?”
One of the staff, outfitted in a red shirt and black pants, stood at the door to the yard smiling at me.
I turned my head and regarded Charlie. Opie couldn’t come to the doctor with me, but I didn’t feel right sending a human psyche to the kennel. Charlie/Opie made it easier for me. He trotted to my side, looked up at me with warm brown eyes that seemed to be amused, then went and sat in front of the staff member.
