The Other Kind (The Progeny of Evolution Series)

by Arsuaga, Mike

  “Here we are,” Cynthia finally said. “We need to take the next left. Then it’s about fifteen miles up a dirt road. Or is it a county line we’ve been riding on for the last hour?” Cynthia glanced at me with a smirk, watching Sam’s aggravation over the possible map error build toward a Blooding. As she neared the boiling point, Cynthia quickly added, “Just kidding, Sam.”

  We turned onto a dirt road between pastures enclosed by barbed wire. An early cold snap left the grass wilted and bleak. In a distant pasture, cattle nuzzled the scrub without enthusiasm. No Happy California Cows in this bunch.

  “I learned on the Internet they can only keep one cow per fifty acres here because the land is so poor,” Cynthia observed.

  Sam sighed heavily, turning away to stare out the window. I kept driving.

  Around six miles later, the road turned into a washboard, playing hell with my suspension. Mercifully a ranch house surrounded by barns and out buildings appeared around the next bend. The main house rose from the cold flat land, large with wooden rocking chairs on the raised front porch. In the driveway sat a new Dodge pickup truck. It was bright orange and oozed chrome. The hiked up rear end and designer tires bespoke of a generous array of features.

  “There it is,” Cynthia exclaimed abruptly, pointing in the general direction of the main house, nearly smacking Sam in the face.

  Milton Elsassar, owner of the ranch and fellow lycan, stood on the gravel path leading to the front door. Wrapped in a heavy quilted waist-length jacket with mink collar, he was medium height and moderately overweight. The jacket momentarily opened, revealing a plaid shirt of fuchsia and black. From hat to chaps, he wore the finest accoutrements when it came to ranching gear. The pickup truck, I decided, suited him.

  “Welcome. Welcome.” He said, rushing to the car before it came to a stop. “This must be the young lady.”

  He opened the door. From the depths of the back seat, Cynthia extended an elegant arm and hand. Milton took the long white fingers, brushing a kiss across the knuckles. After getting out of the car, he led Cynthia toward the main house with a gait my father from Georgia used to call a “Sashay.”

  “Definitely interior decorator variety,” I whispered to Sam. My anxiety over leaving Cynthia fell away. Next came convincing her to be happy with staying. Sam appeared unconcerned with the challenge.

  Milton wanted us to spend the night but Sam explained our tight schedule, due back to work in forty hours. A gracious host, he fed us from a young vagabond he had been saving for a special occasion. To the lycan females he offered the highly prized marbled loin cuts. I feasted on hemoglobin rich blood. A heavy set middle-aged Hispanic woman served. Later, I learned, she doubled as housekeeper.

  “She’s my familiar,” Milton explained. “As a child, I saved her from a lycan in Madrid. I don’t abide the murder of children, no matter how desperate the need. The poor dear was alone in the world, so I brought her back with me. She’s been here ever since. When she grew up, she married one of the hands. He died last year. She’s still in mourning.”

  “You know, many years ago, I thought about adopting,” Sam said reflectively as the room light mirrored in her eyes. “But it wasn’t meant to be…” The last sentence trailed off into remembrance of an old regret as a smile disappeared from her face.

  “You never mentioned this before,” I said in a tone designed to encourage her to elaborate. I defended Sam’s right not to share her story at group meetings, but it hurt when she chose not to confide in me. Occasionally, while alone or lying awake at night, the paranoia I built around the reasons for her reticence worked me into a bad case of the worries.

  “It’s nothing really.” With a quick shake of her head she threw off the disconsolate thoughts. Her mood suddenly brightened. “Does your familiar know about vampires?” she asked, clearly wanting to change the subject.

  “Oh yes, and since none of my kind will hurt her, I suppose it will have to go for your kind, too.”

  “I guess so,” I answered offhandedly as I added Milton’s question to the list of new issues the mutual discovery of our kinds unearthed. Do we respect one another’s familiars? How do we decide such matters? Often these thoughts swirled in my head until I got a headache.

  All of the women, even the silent housekeeper, enjoyed Milton’s good-natured efforts to suggest improvements to my grooming. “You have wonderful bone structure,” he pronounced to general feminine simpering. “I know women who would simply die for your hair.”

  “I get that a lot.” I grumbled.

  Before we left, he took us on a short tour of the ranch. Sam, in particular, enjoyed it. After the tension caused by the drive, it pleased me to watch a bit of her relaxed nature return. One of the barns housed a workshop where five or six young humans made handbags. “This is where the real money is,” Milton explained. “My fashion line is extremely popular.”

  Cynthia picked up one of the finished bags and examined it. “Oh my Gawd!” she gasped, “Are you ‘Sanchez’?”

  Milton nodded. “It is the name of my line, yes.”

  Cynthia snapped around, facing Sam. “Do you have any idea who this man is? Only the hottest handbag designer in the world!”

  “I know who Sanchez is,” Sam picked up a bag, too, slowly turning it over as she examined it, then Milton, returning to the bag. “You are Sanchez,” she agreed.

  “Yes, I am,” he replied proudly. “Please, help yourself to anything you want in the shop as my gift.” He extended a chubby arm to encompass the inventory.

  The incident ended Cynthia’s reluctance to stay. She and Milton saw us off. Besides the handbags, he filled the car with prime cuts for the trip. As we pulled away, I watched Cynthia in the rearview mirror make a beeline to the workshop with Milton following. His sashay in no way matched her long, eager strides.

  A few minutes down the road I noticed for the first time a self-satisfied smile Sam wore. “What?” she asked upon noticing my observation.

  Suddenly, it hit me. “You knew Milton was the designer Sanchez all along, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  * * * *

  On the ride home we made frequent stops because Sam had several inexplicable attacks of nausea, no doubt caused by the stress of the trip and richness of Milton’s food.

  We arrived nearly eight hours before we were due back at work. Sam insisted we remove any traces of prey or Cynthia from the car before turning in, which turned out to be a wise decision.

  When I returned from work, a black SUV parked in one of the spots assigned to our apartment. The emblem of the local police department spread across the door. Detective Borden waited at the doorway. I expected her two subordinates to be close by. She came alone.

  “I see you and Ms. Johnson moved in together,” she said. “How nice.” She wore tight fitting denim jeans. Molded to her crotch, they rode high between butt cheeks. The pantsuit she wore the last time we met ballooned unflatteringly around her hips, but now she cut a slim, attractive image.

  “Yes, she moved here in June.”

  “May we step inside? I have some questions about another missing person.”

  I opened the door allowing her to enter first. I took the opportunity to assess her scent: Aggravation regarding an incident in her life or at work, resisting an urge to be attracted to someone. When she passed a photograph of Sam, posed with head turned to the side in a sort of preen, gazing from over the ball of a honey colored shoulder, I smelled a rush of resentment.

  We sat at the dinette table. I felt exposed by all of the scents in the room. Any of them could put Sam and me away for life. I constantly reminded myself we had nothing to fear unless the good detective was one of us or possessed the nose of a super bloodhound. “Now Detective Borden, what can I do for you?”

  “Please, call me CB,” she said. Then shaking her head, presumably at my stubbornness to address her informally, added, “There is a girl from out on the coast, a member of your support group. Her parents report
ed her missing.”

  “Is her name Cynthia?” I asked.

  “Yes, Cynthia Meadows. How did you know?”

  “We have two females in the group. I know where the other one is.” Detective Borden took out a photograph of the old Cynthia and presented it to me, leaning forward enough to present an eyeful of cleavage in, I assumed, a half-assed ploy to elicit a candid response.

  It didn’t work.

  “What happened?” I asked as I put the picture on the tabletop.

  “There was a family altercation. She seriously injured her younger brother and ran away from home. I can’t say anymore. It’s an ongoing investigation,” she answered, studying my reaction.

  I gave her nothing. “I take it the boy is all right.”

  “He was pretty badly injured but, yes, he will recover.” She scrutinized me again.

  I thought how Cynthia would be relieved to know she didn’t kill her brother. Or maybe not. “So what can I tell you?” I glanced at the photograph of old Cynthia and thought of how different the future would be for her.

  “Tell me when you saw her last.”

  I started to speak but never got the chance as Sam rolled through the door, panting like an overheated dog. Perspiration glistened on her brow. Throwing caution to the wind, she rode her bike the two miles from the museum to our apartment at full speed. It took her a few seconds under four minutes.

  “Sam,” Detective Borden said surprised. “How did you get here so fast?”

  “I caught a ride.” Sam’s icy stare focused on the detective and I realized Borden had questioned her at work prior to coming here. Moreover, with rising panic, I realized I had no idea what Sam told her.

  “So,” Detective Borden asked, turning toward me and her back to Sam. “What happened while Cynthia was with you here?”

  Sam took a seat at the table. “As I told you,” she said, answering for me. “Cynthia came to our apartment three or four days ago. On the day it rained, Saturday, I believe. She showed up just after dark, upset and hysterical. She talked out of her head, something related to a fight with her younger brother. From what I understood, he tried to rape her.” I thought it smart of Sam to throw in the lie about attempted rape. The good detective would chase her tail for a while following the lead. “We gave her a change of clothes and a meal. Afterward, while Jim called her parents, she took off with all the spare cash we keep in the ceramic jar on the stove.”

  Obviously disappointed at not being able to question us separately Detective Borden covered me with a hostile stare. “Is that the way you remember it?”

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  “Why didn’t you report the theft?” The detective’s expression remained unchanged.

  “Cynthia is a good girl.” Sam answered with innocently downcast eyes. “When things settle out, we believe she will return what she took.”

  Detective Borden started to put away her things in preparation to leave. “You know, lately, you and your group seem to fall in my net any time someone goes missing. I hope, for your sake, you are not holding anything back because if you are, it could go very badly.”

  Sam’s demeanor turned. In an instant she jerked to her feet, leaning across the table with their faces inches apart. “I’m getting a little tired of your implied accusations,” she said in a measured tone. The earlier expression of innocence disappeared from her eyes, replaced by the restrained fury of a lycan itching to get out. “If you have proof, arrest us,” she continued with the level tone, belied by the ferocity of her eyes. “Otherwise, back off. Now I want you to leave our home.”

  Exuding a mixture of resentment and fear, Detective Borden gathered her notebook and the photograph. Sam didn’t morph or anything, but the expression in her eyes reached into a place of primal and irrational fear all of us have, even hardboiled police detectives. For a second, Borden’s subconscious must have considered the possibility she faced something the firearm in the shoulder holster, training in hand-to-hand combat, and firing range practice could not protect her from. The only option was flight.

  I watched the detective’s dwindling form move down the walkway toward her car. “Have you screened her yet?” I asked half-jokingly.

  To my surprise, Sam said she had. “She’s an only child with no living relatives.”

  “Forget it,” I said. “She’s a cop. If she went missing they’d turn this town inside out to find her.”

  “I didn’t check her out as possible prey,” Sam said. “She suspects us. I don’t think she is the kind to give up. We need to learn what we can about her. It may come in handy, because she’ll be back, I’m sure.”

  That’s the way the summer ended. Right after Labor Day, an early cold snap rolled in from the Dakotas, followed by eight weeks of Indian summer. Sam and I fell into the routines of our life together. The inquisitive detective faded from memory. According to Cynthia’s emails, she enjoyed the stay in Idaho. Cold weather arrived early there, too, and again, I wondered if the environmentalists were right. After the first big snowfall the two main activities boiled down to, “Help Miltie make bags or do ranch hands.” In a subsequent email Cynthia proudly announced she “Nailed each and every one of them,” adding she morphed only once “just a little.” The news caused Sam to roll her eyes and emit a faint snicker, whereupon she turned to me, saying with pride. “Our little girl is growing up.”

  Jethro from the support group constantly asked after her. He emailed several times but she never replied.

  Chapter Eight

  The Cranky Girl

  Shortly after the trip to Idaho, Sam developed mild but consistent headaches. They resisted all over-the-counter medications. Dr. Ortiz mailed packets of pills and herbs, which temporarily made her better. After a month the headaches, now accompanied by occasional nausea, returned worse than before, making her moody. I hadn’t witnessed such perplexing behavioral change since the experience with Carole. Sam stopped working out and put on weight. I stopped as well. Soon I let my belt out a notch. The glorious evenings and weekends, doing things together and making love continued. Sam still retained the beguiling combination of a tight lithe body and voracious sexual appetite. My extra belt size didn’t matter to her or slow me down, but with the changes in Sam our days fell into two categories.

  The first were like this:

  “Do you think I look fat in this?” Sam asks, observing her butt in the full length mirror on the door leading to the master bath from our bedroom. She wears a pair of cutoff jean shorts. They furrow deeply into the crack. Up top, a checkered flannel shirt fits tightly. Her breasts stretch the garment to where the spaces between the buttons are bowed open.

  There is no right answer, only answers that are wrong to lesser degrees. I know now the correct response is to change the subject but instead I say, “No, it is fine.”

  She turns toward me, her face suddenly harsh. “Do you mean my other clothes make me look fat?” she demands.

  Her response catches me off guard. “No, well, what I mean to say is …” Before I finish, she runs into the bathroom, slamming the door. Inside I hear crying.

  I wait for a few anxious minutes not sure what to do. I follow her to the door. Standing in the bedroom, I say in a tentative voice, “Honey, you are a beautiful woman. You always will be to me. It’s you I love, not your looks. You could put on twenty, hell, fifty pounds. It makes no difference.”

  There is silence on the other side of the door while I consider the implications of what I told her. In truth her appearance doesn’t matter. Yes, I can’t get my mind around the picture of making love to a hundred and seventy-five pound Sam, but what really worries me is Sam might change into someone I don’t know. Someone I’m not sure I could love. Then I think of Carole, whose behavior so confused and bewildered me all those years ago. I gave up on us and we parted in mutual hate and recrimination, only to learn many decades later her condition was temporary. Eventually it passed. What if Sam has a similar ailment, caused by lycans and vampires b
eing together, or possibly unique to Sam? I renew my resolve not to quit on her.

  The door opens. A red-eyed Sam peeks around it. “Do you really mean it?” she asks in a small tentative voice.

  Since I am sure we would eventually reach the bottom of this enigmatic blue funk, I say, “Of course I do,” and I open my arms for her.

  She rushes to me. I respond to the scent of her growing desire. We retreat to the nearby bed to mutually partake of the formidable offerings of our respective genders.

  But there were also days like this:

  I enter the bedroom as she closes the freezer door. She faces me, holding a frozen chop. With a snap of her hips she turns away, attempting to hide the meat.

  “Hon,” I say with as much understanding in my tone as I could put there, “Isn’t this your second snack tonight? At this rate, you’ll need a new kill before Thanksgiving.”

  “I know,” she whines, “but I’m so hungry. Just one more. It’ll be my last, I promise.”

  “You said the same thing after the lunch snack. An hour later you’re back here,” I point out. “I think you ought to put the chop back or you’ll never lose any weight.”

  Oh, I wish I could have those words back!

  Sam’s eyes narrow. “So you think I’m fat?” She accuses.

  “No,” I sputter. “What I mean to say is—” and she’s in the bathroom crying.

  I spend the next hour or two trying to get her to talk to me. If it doesn’t happen after that, experience says it is best to let it alone and pick up the thread in the morning. I trundle off to the front couch for the night. Eventually she comes out of the bathroom because the next morning I invariably find her asleep in our bed. Usually, after a night’s sleep we are able to iron it out before going to work, but other times it hangs between us for days like the summer road kill on the street in front of your house. No one wants to touch it and it gets to be an awful stink.