by Megan Berry
Jasper looked up as she ran by “Aren’t you going to make popcorn?” he asked, frowning when she didn’t answer. He listened to the sound of furniture being dragged around upstairs and shook his head. “Witches be crazy,” he muttered as he went back to his show, intent on finding out who would be crowned the next champion chef. He couldn’t eat conventional food, but it still intrigued him.
Harper pulled the garlic from the bag with shaking fingers and formed a line across the threshold of the door. Her eyes landed on the cross, hanging on the wall, that her gran used to bring out every Easter. Harper clutched the cross to her chest as she shut the door, dragging the heavy dresser in front before setting another piece of garlic on the window sill and one underneath her pillow. She could learn to accept the existence of vampires, but to live with one who was obviously some sort of psychotic killer—it was too much. She stared at her ring, twisting it with worry as she wondered if it could really protect her. She grabbed her phone, not willing to take the chance, and blinked when she realized that the battery was dead.
“Damn it,” she cursed as she sat down on the bed, shaking and trying to breathe calmly. She didn’t know if Jasper could hear her heartbeat from downstairs, and she didn’t want to entice him to come up here and rip it out. She wanted to call Mallory to come save her, or even Mr. Bell, but she’d left her cord downstairs. “Stupid,” Harper muttered.
She thought about taking her cross and some garlic downstairs to get it, but her legs shook and she kept seeing those pictures in her mind’s eye. It would be dawn in a few hours and vampires had to sleep, right? She would be safer up here until then. She sat on the bed and kept guard, but as nothing happened, she began to slowly drift off to sleep. It would be sunrise soon, she assured herself, and even though she had recently learned that vampires could go out in the sun, provided they wear dark sunglasses—Jasper had to sleep sometime—at least she hoped. She would make her escape in the morning, go back to Chicago, and never look back.
Chapter Six
Harper woke from a dream where her gran had been teaching her to spin magic, and she was magnificent at casting spells. She blinked and smiled as she sat up. The sun was streaming into the room and, for a minute, Harper actually managed to forget everything else.
A dark shape sitting hunched over in a chair beside her bed made Harper’s gaze fly to Jasper, who was staring at her intently. Everything flooded back. He was a killer. Harper let out a loud scream, her fingers felt around the bed until she located the small head of garlic, and she launched it at his head as hard as she could.
Jasper caught the garlic with a sigh and stood up. “Garlic doesn’t affect vampires. That is just an urban legend,” he tsk’d like he was disappointed in her. “Really, I did tell you not to believe everything you read.” Harper found the cross and held it up towards him.
“Get back,” she hissed, getting slowly to her feet as she used the cross to keep the vampire at bay.
“I know you found the file,” he said, getting right to the point as he spread his hands up in surrender, and Harper felt her stomach drop down to her toes. It had been stupid of her to leave it out in the open. Now he probably had to kill her to keep her silent. She gulped.
“I take it you didn’t get any further than the page with my rap sheet?” he asked drolly, and Harper shook her head.
“I saw enough,” she told him. Her eyes narrowed as she watched him to make sure he wasn’t going to make any sudden moves.
“I really wish you had,” Jasper said, holding the file up to her. “The next page would have cleared my name.”
Harper smirked at the vampire. “I bet.”
Jasper sighed and held up the file, flipping to the proper page.
“I was framed for most of those murders—it was a rabid wolf that was really the culprit.” He held up the page, and Harper squinted at the small words, refusing to get too close or take her eyes off Jasper.
“What do you mean most of the murders?” she asked suspiciously, not missing his odd phrasing. Jasper tossed the folder on her bedside table and sighed as he threw himself down into the chair.
“I was briefly under the thrall of my sire, and she forced me to do things…” He looked regretful, but Harper wasn’t sure if she believed him or not. “The last one on the page.” He pulled out the picture of a beautiful woman with a large chunk of wood protruding from her chest. “This one was me. I killed her,” he said, far too casually for Harper’s liking. “Her name was Angelique, and she was a terrible person and an even worse vampire. I did the world a favor.”
Harper snatched the paper from his hand and quickly examined it. “Oh,” she muttered as she handed it back.
“I’m actually a little bit offended that you automatically thought the worst of me,” he told her, and Harper shrugged helplessly.
“You’re a vampire.”
“Liz was part of the paranormal council at the time of the trial. I was convicted with very little evidence. She didn’t feel right about it. They wanted to stake me right away, but she convinced them to imprison me until she could gather more evidence—thank God. They would only accept on the condition that she became my guardian. She was very powerful,” he stopped and nodded towards the ring.
“I was a bit of a wild card back then, false imprisonment and all that… So she had to take some extreme measures—they have proved difficult to reverse.” He shook his head a tad bitterly before moving with lightning speed. Harper gasped when he was suddenly behind her with his arms wrapped around her like steel bands. She tried to wiggle and press the cross to his skin, but he held her immobile very easily.
She froze when his teeth touched against the rapidly beating pulse in her neck. “I have told you before that I won’t hurt you. I wish you would start to believe me and stop with these childish games,” he breathed as he pulled away and spun her to face him. He yanked the cross from her hand as he did so, and tucked it away into the pocket of his jeans.
“I’ll see you downstairs. How about I make you some breakfast?” He bent down to pick up a stray head of garlic that was rolling around the floor. “Do you like garlic with your eggs?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows at her before shutting the door lightly behind him.
Harper stared after him with her mouth slightly agape. It was obvious that the cross had not done a thing to keep her safe from him. She sat down on the bed and examined the folder for the second time. It seemed like he’d been telling the truth. It had been a rogue wolf that had killed all those victims. She read a report on Jasper’s maker Angelique, and her eyebrows rose. She had been one evil vamp. She actually felt bad for Jasper. She could no longer judge him—she probably would have killed the woman herself!
The penmanship in the file was very obviously her gran’s unique, loopy chicken scratch, no one else would be able to mimic it. Harper smiled as she traced one of her elaborate W’s. Finally, she stood with a sigh and followed her nose downstairs. Jasper hadn’t been joking, the enticing scent of garlicy eggs was drifting up towards her, making her stomach grumble loudly.
Harper walked into the kitchen to find the table set for two with orange juice, eggs, bacon, and hash browns. “This looks amazing,” Harper said honestly as she sat down.
Jasper acknowledged her with a grunt from the toaster, where he was busy buttering a mountain of toast. He walked over and set the plate in front of her with a flourish
“Voila. Dig in,” he told her as he took a seat across from her. Harper took a sip of her orange juice and smiled.
“It’s really good.”
Jasper nodded. “Thanks. I hand squeezed them myself—it’s a mixture of navel and blood oranges. Harper spit her drink back into her glass and stared suspiciously.
“Blood?” she asked, and he shook his head.
“Blood oranges, they’re a real thing—Google it.”
Harper didn’t taste anything other than the pure, citrusy sweetness, so she took another small sip to placate him before setting it down
. “Sorry, it’s hard to trust,” she told him sincerely, and he shrugged, looking down at his own plate.
“To trust a vampire?” he clarified, and Harper shook her head.
“Anyone.”
“Did you have any plans today?” he asked, switching the subject. Harper took a bite of her garlicy egg and closed her eyes for a moment to savor it. Last night, when she’d thought Jasper was some sort of killing machine, her plans today had been to run away back to Chicago as fast as she could. She opened her eyes and looked into the vampire’s own vividly blue irises. They reminded her of deep water and were probably just as easy to get lost in. She shrugged. Today she had no idea what she was going to do.
“I thought, if you wanted to, I could help you with your magic?” Jasper suggested, and Harper froze with her fork halfway to her mouth.
“You know magic?” she asked, not meaning to sound as incredulous as it probably came out.
Jasper shook his head. “I do not have magic, no, but I watched your gran for years. I know a thing or two.” Harper thought it over and then nodded. It wasn’t like she had anyone else lining up to help.
“That would be amazing.” She gave him a small smile, hoping it conveyed how grateful she really was. “Thank you.”
Jasper shrugged. “I’ll just put some of these leftovers in the fridge, and we can get started. Harper looked down at his plate in surprise. He hadn’t touched a thing.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” she asked, eying the enormous amount of food that remained untouched. Jasper shook his head.
“Vampires can’t digest solids—thank God for whiskey.” Harper didn’t laugh at his joke though.
“Why did you go to all this trouble then?” she asked, motioning to the food. “Why did you dish up a plate?” Jasper shrugged under her scrutiny.
“Maybe it’s weird, but it’s something Liz and I used to do. We would sit down every morning and have breakfast. She liked the companionship.” Harper felt a welling of gratitude for the vampire across the table from her.
“That was very kind,” she told him, meaning it from the bottom of my heart.
“Well, when someone holds your fate in the palm of their hand, you learn to play ball,” Jasper said with a shrug, and Harper frowned. His mask was back on, and for the life of her she didn’t know why he pretended to be so cold. It was obvious he had cared for her gran.
Harper froze with her glass of orange juice halfway to her lips as an uncomfortable thought pushed into her brain. Her gran was her gran, but she hadn’t always been. She couldn’t have been older than thirty when Jasper was released into her care. “You and my gran…” Harper started to say and then blushed. She was dying of curiosity, but it wasn’t right to ask. Jasper cocked an eyebrow at her and she looked down at her plate. “Never mind,” she mumbled as she grabbed her plate and took it to the sink. She heard Jasper chuckle and winced.
“You want to ask if we were ever intimate,” he guessed. “If we ever hooked up, as the young kids are saying these days.” Harper frowned at his air quotes. She didn’t think the young kids were even using that phrase anymore.
“It’s really none of my business,” she hastily reassured as she turned her back on him and started scraping her plate into the garbage.
“It is none of your business,” he affirmed, “But I can tell that you’re dying to know, so I will answer.” Harper braced herself to hear some pretty disturbing things about her gran. She was sure Jasper wasn’t the type to scrimp on the details. “Never,” he surprised her by saying, and Harper spun around to face him.
“Really?” she asked, not sure why she even cared…or felt such relief.
Jasper’s face was deadly serious. “We never so much as kissed. She was a good looking woman back in the day, don’t get me wrong, but she loved your grandfather deeply, and she never got over his death.”
Harper blinked as tears pricked her eyes. She couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to love that deeply. At this point in her life, she couldn’t even fathom it.
“I never met him,” she told him unnecessarily. Of course he would already know that, he had been living here since before she was even born. “He sounded nice though. Gran always talked about him.”
Jasper nodded.
Harper thought about it for a minute and frowned. “I don’t get it. If Gran was such a powerful witch, why couldn’t she save him when he ran his car off the road the night of the blizzard?”
Jasper gaped at her, and Harper suddenly had a bad feeling that everything she knew was some big elaborate cover story.
“Harper. Your grandfather wasn’t killed in a car accident,” Jasper said suddenly after a moment of awkward silence. “It is ludicrous that something so human would harm him.” Harper blinked.
“What was it really?” she asked woodenly, and he sighed.
“Damn Liz for leaving me to answer all these questions,” he muttered, though he didn’t really seem angry about it, just weary of the task at hand.
“Your grandfather was killed by a powerful demon.” Harper’s mouth hung open. Demons were real? Of course it made sense that they would be real if vampires and werewolves were a thing, but demons… just seemed so much more terrifying!
“So hell is a real place?” she managed to squeak out.
Jasper nodded, “Of course.”
“Oh my Go…” Harper slapped a hand over her mouth before she could finish that sentence. “Then…” She pointed up above their heads. “That’s real too?” she asked in a whispered hush, and Jasper nodded.
“Heaven and Hell, yep.”
Harper’s mind was racing. She wasn’t sure what was crazier news, the confirmed existence of Heaven and Hell, or the fact that her grandfather had been killed by a demon!
“How did he die?” she asked finally, and Jasper shrugged.
“Liz never told me the details.” Harper sighed in frustration.
“He was a pretty powerful upper demon though, so whoever took him out must have been off the charts.”
Harper stared at the vampire in shock, not understanding what he meant at first. “My grandfather wasn’t a demon.” She denied at last, when she finally found her voice.
Jasper nodded his head, “he was.”
Harper struggled to make herself breathe. “But how? I mean, what… but then I’d be…?” She trailed off, unable to say the words.
“You are a quarter demon,” Jasper confirmed, and Harper felt nauseous.
“What does that even mean?” she asked weakly as she gripped her stomach, her breakfast suddenly feeling like a gut full of rocks.
“Demon blood is very powerful magic. Witches that can get their hands on the stuff use it as a conduit for magic, to amplify their spells. It is part of the reason your magic is all over the place. It’s very powerful, and that makes it harder to learn and control. Not very many witches can claim demonic blood. It is a very rare mix.” Harper’s heart sank at the news. She didn’t want to hear that she was some sort of freakish hybrid—being a witch was already too much to take in.
“Did my grandmother marry my grandfather for his blood?” Harper blurted out, and Jasper shook his head.
“Come on now, you know that could never be true,” he chastised her, and Harper shrugged.
“I don’t think I know anything anymore,” she admitted.
“A lot of people thought that, but they didn’t care. They were in love.” Jasper cleared his throat. “I haven’t found anything close to that in almost 700 hundred years,” he admitted.
Harper opened her mouth to reply, but Jasper pushed his chair back and got to his feet. “It’s too bad you couldn’t just magic these dishes to wash themselves,” he said with a lopsided grin, changing the subject.
Harper frowned at his back as he stacked stuff in the sink. “You can’t just drop a bomb on me like, you’re part demon, and then just start washing the dishes!” she protested, standing up as well and planting her hands on her hips.
Jasper
turned around and gave her a helpless shrug. “I’m a vampire, Harper. I’m not really sure what to tell you, if you were part vampire, I could obviously be of more help.”
A furious pounding on the front door made her jump. Jasper’s fangs became more pronounced as he curled his lip back and used his hands to cover his ear. “Infernal wolf,” he cursed. Harper started towards the door, even though she didn’t want to let Jasper off the hook so easily. She wanted to stay and wring every last bit of information out of him.
She didn’t even make it halfway through the living room before Mr. Bell met her, practically running. He’d let himself in.
“What is going on?” she asked, noticing how unkempt and wild he looked.
“Please tell me your magic is progressing?” he demanded, not pausing to even say hi, and Harper shook her head.
“She’s progressed to lighting the kitchen on fire,” Jasper answered for her, having followed her, and Harper shot him a frown.
“I haven’t gotten very far,” she admitted diplomatically.
“Damn it,” Keaton cursed, surprising Harper with his vehemence. Even Jasper looked startled.
“What’s got your panties all twisted up in a knot?” Jasper asked bluntly, and Keaton growled at him.
“Forgive me for not being a barrel of laughs, vampire, but I have the Northern army camped at the edge of town threatening a hostile takeover!” Jasper choked on his laugh and suddenly looked more serious than Harper had ever seen him—that alone scared her more than anything Mr. Bell had just said.
“What army?” Harper spluttered. “This is America!” Both supernatural beings turned and gave her a sardonic look.
“How many times do I have to tell you, you’re in our world now? The regular rules don’t apply,” Jasper lectured, shaking his head.
“Our town is rich in magical properties—our location and magical resources alone make it highly coveted,” Mr. Bell interrupted to explain.
