by Loni Lynne
She had so many questions to muddle through now. All Marilyn knew was someone had better damn well start explaining things. Unfortunately, she wasn't sure who would know—and who could she actually trust to tell her secret to?
Heading back to the apartment complex, Marilyn stayed close to the shadows of the back alleys. A dog barked, setting off a chain reaction from other dogs in the area. They sensed her in her canine form. Understanding their growls as actual words, warning each other of her presence, startled her. But then, she was one of them now. Clenching her jaw, she fought the urge to join in on their response—she wasn't keen on alerting her neighbors to her new existence.
Happy to make it back, Marilyn realized she had a problem. How in the hell was she going to get in? The door to the main lobby closed at nights. The only way in was through the back door, and she would have to find some way to key herself in. The small parking area remained empty, no one to let her in. And who would let a wolf inside? Anyone's first instinct would be to call animal control.
Okay, how did one change from wolf back to human form? Yeah, like there's a manual on transformation, Marilyn.
She needed to think, and fast. Closing her eyes she focused on the possibilities, trying to remember every shape-shifting, paranormal romance she'd ever read. How had they done it? Wolf to human…wolf to human…how could she morph back?
Imposs…whoa! Marilyn opened her eyes and looked at her body. She was back in her human form. Okay, so all she had to do was think about the change and it would happen? She'd have to test that theory, later. Right now, she just wanted to get inside and tell Tina about her transformation. Tell her she wasn't crazy, that what she remembered as 'dreams' weren't dreams after all.
But first, she had a different problem. She'd keyed in her entry number to unlock the outer door, only to see her reflection in the glass. Umm…naked, and standing in front of the security cameras. Damn! One of the big reasons she'd moved here was for the phenomenal security, and now she would be viewed by the staff in the morning. Great!
Taking a deep breath and setting her shoulders, she had no other option than to fake it. She would walk in, take the stairs up to hide from those who would be in the elevator—no one used the stairs.
The sound of her bare feet slapping the cold linoleum steps echoed in the empty stairwell. She lived on the third floor. Ignoring the rest of the video cameras on each floor, she made her way up to her level. Opening the heavy door to their floor, she prayed for a clean break…no such luck.
The guy from their floor had just gotten done with his late night work out and had evidently taken the stairs. Hoping he didn't see her as he used his towel to wipe sweat off of his face—she was lousy with good fortune tonight—he spied her. They both stopped and stared, him in awe and her like the naked woman caught off guard that she was.
Crossing her arms over her chest, she turned her back to him and walked briskly to her door. It was locked and she'd forgotten to take her key. Knocking, hoping Tina was there to let her in, she looked over her shoulder to see the guy staring at her.
Marilyn felt her lip curl back and her teeth gnashed out a vicious snarl. He backed up and walked away in the direction of his own unit.
The door swung open and Tina stared at her in aghast.
"Um…you're naked."
"Just shut up and let me in before I have security on me," she hissed as Tina moved to the side to let her enter.
"What happened to you? Are you okay? Did someone attack you?"
"No…I'm fine…I…" Marilyn didn't know where to begin. Tina continued to stare at her. She hurried down the hall to her room and found her robe, trying to figure out how to explain the situation to make her friend understand.
That was it. There was no way her friend could understand. She barely understood.
"You what?" Tina stood in her doorway, waiting for her to continue.
Marilyn's shoulders dropped in defeat. As much as she'd always trusted Tina to believe in her, now she wasn't sure if she would. She couldn't blame her if she didn't—Tina would find her certifiably crazy.
Exhaling, Marilyn racked her fingers nervously through her hair. "I'm going to tell you a story, but I need you to have an open mind." Upon saying that, she took off her robe and thought about being a wolf.
Tina's eyes drew wide as she backed away, shaking her head and slammed the bedroom door to separate them.
Yeah…her friend wasn't ready to be open minded, just yet.
Being stuck in the apartment while 'recovering,' was not her idea of spending time off of work. Though sitting and drinking cappuccinos while staring out the wintery window wasn't a bad way to spend a snowy morning, it just wasn't her norm. Dr. Johnston had yet to give her the go-ahead to return to Livedel. She'd called, wanting to talk to him about the changes she was going through. He should know something. He'd been her doctor for awhile. Hadn't he given her medicines for her aches and pains before leaving—for…her…trip?
Damn, damn, damn! It came back to her. She knew she'd been in to see him before her trip. She'd kept her files from her appointments. They were in her medical files on-line. Nearly spilling her cappuccino, she ran into her room. Opening her laptop and waiting for it to go through the start up operations, she began to dress in her work out clothes. Once she found the paperwork for her appointment back in early January, she was going to go over to see Tina's dad and start asking all kinds of questions.
Slipping on her running shoes, she sat down and typed her password into her medical files at Livedel. Password incorrect. She typed it in again, only to have the same error message come up, blocking her from her own files.
She knew her password. It was always the same. She logged onto her work center at Livedel. Working from home occasionally, she had full access…password denied…or used to. Something wasn't right.
Grabbing her cell phone she dialed Tina, forgetting she hadn't been answering her calls the past few days. After the fiasco the other night, Tina had gone to stay at her folk's house. Marilyn didn't blame her. But it was still difficult not having her friend around for a sounding board.
"Hi."
"Tina?"
"Yeah…it's me."
The odd silence spoke volumes. What could either one say at a time like this? Marilyn figured she'd just come out and tell her friend what was going on.
"Um, I have a problem,"
"No shit, really?" her friend replied. "Could it be because…" She paused. "Look Marilyn, I can't talk right now. Can I call you back later?"
"Sure. No problem."
Tina hung up. Marilyn had never felt more alone.
Her nightly runs took her further away from home. Marilyn made a point of keeping an extra set of clothing in her car. She'd head up to Gambrills, park in the parking lot and slip into the night unobserved. Memories or maybe just instinct flooded back at times, hunting in the quiet woods of…she wasn't sure where…but there'd been another wolf. She remembered eyes as blue as sapphires in a background of raven colored fur. The urge to howl hit her whenever she thought about the creature. She stifled her need to keep from being detected.
Some nights she'd been able to hunt a bit. The rare wild hare or turkey would have her on the prowl but as she was taught, she kept her hunting clean, eating her fill and burying the remains to keep others from finding it. She'd return hours later to her car, change into her clothes and head home to her empty apartment.
It wasn't the same without Tina there. They'd shared an apartment down in Baltimore until recently when Marilyn had moved up here after the semester ended and her breakup with Daniel. Except for that brief period and now, they hadn't been apart since senior year in high school. Tina's dismissal hurt more than Daniel's did at times, especially since they'd always been so close. They relied on each other. But still, Marilyn couldn't blame her—coming to her own terms with her changes was troubling enough.
Explaining them to someone else, impossible. Still, she'd managed to accept her fate, even knowing she didn't understand why.
Noticing her landline phone blinking as she turned on the light in her living room, Marilyn checked her voice mails.
"Hey Mari, it's me Tina. I wanted to touch base with you. Something is wrong and I'm not sure what…I mean other than…well you know. Call me? I'll be up until eleven or so if you want to call tonight."
The clock read ten-twenty-nine. Marilyn dialed her friend's cell phone.
"It's me Tina. What's up?"
"Meet me at Denny's in ten minutes."
"What's going on?" Tina sounded shaken…more so than when she'd seen her morph.
"Ju…just meet me there, please."
"Okay. On my way."
Only a few people were sitting in Denny's drinking coffee and having a late night breakfast or dessert. Tina sat toying with her soda and straw. Looking around nervously, she smiled when she saw Marilyn and brushed a stray blonde curl back behind her ear.
"I promise I won't bite," Marilyn teased to break the strained mood.
Seeing Tina's eyes well up with moisture had her instantly regretting her words. But Tina held up her hand and shook her head. "No…it's okay. It's not you."
The waitress came by to take her order as Marilyn slipped into the booth across from her life-long friend. She ordered a hot chocolate, not really hungry after her recent hunt. Waiting for the woman to leave, she leaned forward.
"What's up? You look like you've been through the wringer backwards."
Tina looked down at her hands, clasped together in front of her on the table. They shook. Marilyn placed her hand over them, hoping to calm her friend's fears instead of sickening her by her touch.
"Something awful happened at work tonight," she whispered, her voice quivering in time with her hands.
"Tell me Max didn't do anything to you…I'll rip his heart out!" Marilyn seethed. She'd met Tina's boss at the Greater Baltimore Blood Bank a time or two when he'd been the manager at her other office in Towson. He was a sleaze bag with hands that loved to touch things that didn't belong to him…namely the other female co-workers.
"No. It wasn't Max." She looked around as if to see who might be listening. "It was his supervisor—"
"He touched you?"
Tina's brow furrowed and she shook her head. "He…I was finishing up work. It was late and everyone had left…or so I thought." She took a cleansing breath. "As I was taking the trash out to the dumpster, I saw Gerlich, the new supervisor…I saw him…he…oh God!" Tina buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
She'd never seen her friend so hysterical. Tina, the bright light on any rainy day, was a mess. Slipping over into her side of the booth, Marilyn took her friend in her arms to comfort her. The waitress came with the hot cocoa and nodded towards Tina in a gesture asking if she was all right. Marilyn nodded and gave a half smile. The waitress retreated.
She gently patted and stroked Tina's back, trying to get her to settle down. Her sobs stuttered into sighs and she used her napkin to wipe her face. Still, Marilyn waited. What had this Gerlich done to upset Tina so?
"You know how we always thought vampires were so sexy?" Tina asked, starting to laugh in a hysterical hiccup. "Well, they aren't." Tina looked straight at Marilyn. "I swear, I saw this man bite the neck of another man…and then he bit into his own wrist and made him swallow his blood."
Sitting back away from Tina, Marilyn's mind went into a whirl. Memories of fanged people approaching her and exploding…running away…
"You don't believe me?" Tina asked, her lip snarled. "You of all people?"
"No. It's not that." Marilyn shook her head. "Did he see you?"
"You believe me? You believe that I saw a vampire?"
"Yes, I believe you but that's not important. Did he see you?"
Tina sat back, thinking. "I don't know. I made a gasping sound and he turned in my direction, but he was too far away and it was kind of dark. I was in shadow."
"Vamiers don't have problems with vision," Marilyn said, her voice distant even to her own ears. Vamiers? She knew the name or term…Her head throbbed and her insides turned warm—more than fever it was a raging inferno. "We need to get out of here."
"Why?"
"I need air…" Fishing a twenty out of her purse she laid it down, and leaving her hot cocoa untouched, she pulled Tina behind her and out the door. The frosty air did nothing to cool her down. "Meet me back at the apartment."
"Are you going to be okay?"
"Yes. Go on. Go straight there and lock the door behind you. Don't let anyone in other than me."
Running through the woods of Gambrills, Marilyn's heart rate sped. She knew she needed to run but what was going on inside her body didn't feel like it did when she was a wolf. Fleet of foot, her body adapted to every tree, every root, every outcropping of rock. Naked she ran through the woods, waiting for her body to morph into her wolf. She'd accepted her new change over the past week, realizing that her crazy dreams weren't crazy after all and that somehow everything would fit back together.
She continued running and waiting. Concern swelled in her brain when she didn't feel the change. Usually an image or a canine tic of muscular motion drew her into the first signs of transition. This time there was no wolf. The edge of the cliff was only yards away. She knew the area. She'd come up here many times on hikes to look out over the valley. It was a helluva drop with sheer sides straight down. Her mind slammed into her, telling her to stop, but an involuntary force had her going at a dead run. Panic laced through her as her nervous system played havoc, fighting both her voluntary and involuntary nervous system.
Her legs didn't stop, her heart sped up and her brain screeched at her, but instead of a feminine scream the screech of a beast erupted and her body launched itself off of the cliff. Squealing, Marilyn hoped to God this was a dream and she'd wake up. The sound of her voice continued as she fell…and the screech turned back into a scream, throwing her into a semi-conscious state of waking.
She didn't stay asleep long enough to sense the unfurling of magnificent, blood red wings behind her, keeping her aloft.
Draylon woke with a start. He wasn't sure what roused him but the phone next to him shrilled like the shrieking call of a Zmeu. Lifting his head off of his desk blotter, he rubbed at his eyes and picked it up.
"Hello?"
"Dray, we have a problem and I need you to see to it ASAP."
He looked at the caller ID. "Rick? What's going on?"
"Who would be the best contact to handle a Vamier situation in the United States?"
"Depends whereabouts."
"We have alerts of a massive blood bank take over in the Baltimore/Washington D.C. area."
"Isn't Mike Linder on the case?"
"Yes. But I want you there also. There's a possibility we might be dealing with one of Aiden's top henchmen, Gerlich. You know of him?"
"Yeah, I know of him, former Nazi soldier that turned vamp back in 1940. What happened to Trevor? He's usually handling Aiden's deals."
"Reports have it that Trevor is no longer Aiden's number one. Seems there was a falling out when he couldn't capture Marilyn Reddlin and bring her in. Gerlich is now in charge of Aiden's United States operations."
"Sonofabitch. And I trusted Trevor more."
"Exactly what I thought." Rick sighed. "That's not all. There are human lives at stake. Remember me telling you about Christina Johnston? They moved her from the Towson branch to the Frederick branch of the blood bank. Gerlich is up in Frederick, working over the blood storage. She may be in danger if Gerlich gets to her. Not only that, if Gerlich finds out she's friends with Marilyn, both will be in danger."
"Fuck."
"Yeah…I knew sending Marilyn back prematurely was a bad idea. I still don't understand why you didn't wait for my instructions."
"Because I got tired of w
aiting, Rick. She was in danger here with me. I couldn't hold out without giving in…if you get my drift."
"Yeah, I got your drift and if I hear you talking about 'your drift' where Marilyn Reddlin is concerned, I will personally lop it off. I don't want to hear it…ever! You got that?"
Draylon removed the phone receiver from his ear and looked at it as if Rick had just jumped through it to grab him by the throat. "I've got it. Rick, what is up with you? Ever since this whole fiasco with Marilyn Reddlin came up you've not been yourself."
"What's up with me? Putting up with more shit than I can right now. Oh and to add the proverbial cherry on top, I just found out that my chief financial officer is MIA. She told her staff I asked her to join me for a business conference in Europe. Funny thing about that…no one informed me of any business conference. The last I knew she'd called me to see if I could find her daughter."
"And did you?" Draylon smirked, knowing damn well that Rick hadn't informed Diane Reddlin of anything.
Silence. "It wasn't the right time."
"Nothing is the right time with you anymore, Rick. And it's making some of us edgy. You need to come clean soon or all hell is going to break loose."
"Hell is breaking loose, my friend. Unfortunately it's not in my power to stop it."
Why was Rick involving him in all of this right now? Everything had been going well lately. He'd managed to get Marilyn back to the states and was on his way of trying to forget about her. Now, he was going back into the hell he'd just gotten himself out of.
Draylon managed to contact his friend, Mike Linder, a former Navy SEAL, circa Vietnam era. The man had been the leader of his SEAL Team and lost them all in a rescue mission gone bad. On top of that, he'd been turned by one of Aiden's vampires—without permission.
When they'd brought him in to the mobile medical facility he'd been in a bad way. But the post-traumatic stress disorder he suffered made his eternal life a living hell. The man never got over losing every member of his company only to remain alive.
