by Aya DeAniege
“Sir, what about me?”
“Kevin, your mother would be very upset if anything were to happen to you. So I’m not going to let it, understand?”
“Yes, Sir,” Kevin said.
“Hang up,” I whispered. “They can track.”
Quin smiled at me, then winked like we were playing a joke on someone.
“Just to be clear, Kevin, you told them what you knew about where I was, and were still arrested?”
“They think that I emptied your apartment in the fifteen minutes it took them to come back with another question and a warrant.”
“But I’ve been planning this move for months,” he said.
“That’s what I told them! You can’t just move a bunch of paintings overnight! But, them and that. They wanted access to your security cameras and didn’t believe me that they don’t do anything. So they’re looking for the security office thing.”
“But there isn’t one,” Quin said.
“I know,” Kevin sighed. “I told them that. They also seem to think I’m some hacker? Sir, I can barely type.”
“I know Kevin. I didn’t hire you for your computer skills. I did it because you’re a pretty, charismatic face. The lawyer will be there shortly, but right now you’ll have to excuse me, the President is coming.”
“All right, Sir.”
The phone call ended, and I frowned at Quin, who grinned at me toothily.
Kevin could do hacking, I had witnessed him doing as much. He wasn’t as good as Troy, but considering the fact that Troy was still alive and technically well, he was passing on what knowledge he had to Kevin. I chose to ignore almost all of it and focus on the more pressing question.
“The president?” I asked.
“It’s code to let anyone with a brain know that we know they’re listening and that they won’t find anything. The location will track to within Ontario. We once debated having it show me as in the White House, mainly because it amused me and I lived in the States at the time.”
“That location in Ontario isn’t here, right?” I asked.
“No, goodness no. And Kevin can’t access the system anymore. The moment he calls mother, he’s locked out. Which was why we didn’t tell Kevin where we were going.”
He hadn’t told Kevin, but we also hadn’t known that there would be police looking for us. I frowned out the windshield and then turned ever so slowly to Quin.
“You always plan like that?”
“It becomes a force of habit. And look at the trouble it’s saving us.”
“Good point. As long as they don’t contact my family and then shut down the road between here and there, Mr. Fedora.”
Quin considered me for a moment, a finger rubbing at his bottom lip. Finally, he turned to the steering wheel again and really seemed to consider it, and then the rest of the car.
When it came to pointing out the obvious, somehow calling Quin a name made him stop and think. Maybe it was because he wasn’t expecting me to call him a name, maybe it was my tone of voice, or maybe it reminded him of Sasha, who had apparently called him all kinds of names in an endearing sort of fashion.
“You think we should ditch the vehicle? That’s what they’d be looking for.”
“It’s a really expensive car!”
“Okay, fine, we’ll go for a walk and see how it all plays out, how about that?”
Suddenly he wanted out and away from the car. Probably because I had pointed out the obviousness of the vehicle. My mother would certainly tell the police what I had been ‘kidnapped’ in and whatever sordid details that she could make up before they stopped her. If we walked away and came back to people around the car, we’d know what had happened and could find another vehicle. Either way, we wouldn’t be in the giant flashing sign that practically screamed vampire.
“Okay,” I said. Then I looked at my phone out of habit. “Peter: on my way. Mum: sweetie, please talk to me. We can get you help. Interviewers: something is wrong with the system, the location data was apparently never turned on, and it’s not backing up so we can’t tell where you are or what’s going on. Will keep you up to date.”
“They are very bold for mortals,” he said with a shake of his head. “Either that or incompetent.”
Given the nature of the interview, I shouldn’t have been surprised that they had contingency plans on top of contingency plans. But outright lying to the police? Or maybe falsifying records? There was supposed to be a GPS tracker in the tablet.
The one in my arm had worked itself out of my flesh some three days before.
The only other option was that the interviewers had never placed a GPS tracker in the tablet like they were supposed to, and it could only ping the location when it backed up. In that way, it would probably be more difficult to track where we had gone and how long we were there, protecting my family from would-be hunters.
“You think they shut the entire thing down because of this?”
“It’s a multimillion-dollar project. Unless my people hacked it, it was done by the interviewers. That’s not part of the plan.”
“With new technology, you need to adapt the plan.”
“That’s true.”
“Balor calling,” the car chirped.
Quin jabbed the dashboard. “Balor.”
“Younger Council.”
He turned and looked at me. I sighed silently and got out of the car as he put on his Wraith voice and took the call. Waiting outside the car, I couldn’t make out anything that was said, just the rise and fall of Balor’s slightly higher pitched voice. Wraith had that gravelly sort of sound because Quin lowered his voice, made it harder for people to hear him.
When the call ended, Wraith got out of the vehicle and eyed me.
The changes between Quin and Wraith weren’t quite so subtle. Wraith always had the same look that Lu had had as he threw the coffee table. A barely restrained violence that would explode if I said or did anything wrong.
“The Council is counter-suing,” Wraith said. “The mortals have crossed a line. The creation of Progeny is not the murder of a person, and whoever said as much, or even reported it to the police, will be found and sued for libel.”
“I think only us and the interviewer group knew,” I said. “I didn’t tell anyone about it.”
“It may have been someone from the interview tomorrow morning, considering they knew about Troy.”
“The interviewers know about Troy.”
“Not the information I was just given.”
“Your stock has been outed?” I asked.
He snarled in response.
“And they clearly said that this was because you turned us, or are they still using the term murder?” I asked. “Because it’s possible they just know about the eating and not about the rising from the dead portion of it all.”
Wraith almost snarled, but then looked away. “They did say that they would consider dropping charges against Balor, considering Troy was alive and answering most of their questions.”
“Most, but admitting nothing about being stock.”
“He’s a good boy.”
“Okay. So, you set up a huge lie,” I said. “Make the mortals believe that you released the stock because they were discovered.”
He still bristled, but at least a little Quin came back to his features. Ever so slowly, my Maker returned and his head lowered and touched the top of the car.
I’m not entirely certain, because I hadn’t seen the motion often enough and didn’t have the right context, but I think that was him praying. Only when frustrated, it seemed. Prayer was what religious people did when stressed out, right?
Could always ask someone with first hand experience.
“I want to kill someone or something,” he said to his feet.
“I can understand that,” I said gently.
“It’s my people, my family that is under threat,” he snapped.
“So we need to use Sasha’s stock as our IT people while things quiet down.
Your people just go about their lives and get back as much as they can and just rebuild. It’ll be difficult but will work.”
“Oh, I know,” he said. “It doesn’t make me feel better.”
A vehicle pulled up behind Quin. I sighed and looked across the car at him as he straightened and pulled his jacket downward to settle it back into place.
“Welcome to the modern age,” I said.
“The Archives are already packed and on their way to the backup location with Androgen. The Council has almost stripped the chambers and is on the move. By the end of the week, there will be nothing of us left in the city, or even the country besides the factionless.”
“Someone pushed this, and we need to find out who,” I said as Peter got out of his car.
“That we do,” Quin said before he turned to my brother. “Peter, meeting vampires alone in a park, really?”
“I thought you all were fake,” Peter said. “Made up by the media, maybe a bit advertisement for a movie or something. But that was real, wasn’t it? You’re real?”
“I am, and Helen was turned.”
“Why haven’t you got fangs?”
“We altered myth to help us hide,” he said. “Fangs is one of the best examples. That and burning in sunlight.”
Peter made a sound and walked around his car. “Mum and dad were in the kitchen taking a call when I left. I didn’t tell them where I was going.”
“Oh?” Quin asked.
“Seems the police think Helen is dead. Dad was telling them, no, just caught up in a cult. Gave the description of your car and plates. Mum is trying to tell them that you murdered her baby and why are you walking around free after doing that?”
“It seems humans believe that we are the walking dead. A silly notion as we have beating hearts and grow our hair just the same. The differences are immortality and infertility.”
“And drinking blood,” Peter said.
“Consuming parts of the human animal, yes,” Quin murmured. “You surely didn’t come all the way out here just to ask me about vampires, did you, Peter?”
“Sort of,” he said. “That and apologize to Helen for laughing at her. I mean, who would have guessed it?”
“After seeing her, I would have,” Quin growled back. “I didn’t have a choice in the end for whether I wanted to turn her, but had the stay on Progeny been lifted, yes, I would have done exactly what I ended up doing.”
“Well, Helen, I’m sorry for how I behaved.”
My ability to read minds was completely off. While in my mother’s house it just seemed to flare and explode however it pleased. Maybe by doing that, I had expended my excess energy. Which left me staring mutely at Peter, trying to get it to work because I wanted to know what was going on. It had been years since we had physically seen one another.
But my brother would never have apologized to me like that. He would have counted his saying that he wanted to apologize as his apology.
I watched him for a moment, wondering if this was a ploy to try and get me to turn him, or if he was entirely sincere. As I did so, Quin turned to me and gave me a pointed look.
I had seen that look before on the faces of other people. The one that said that I had best speak up and quit being rude.
“I forgive you,” I said, though the words rang hollow because I meant nothing by them.
Peter nodded, then motioned over his shoulder.
“I should get going. It was nice meeting you, Quintillus.”
And then Peter got back in his car and drove away. We watched him drive away in silence. In that silence was a heavy question, that neither of us dared ask until the car pulled out of sight.
“Quintillus?” we asked each other at the same time.
“So, you didn’t introduce me properly?” he asked.
“No, I introduced you as Quin Smith, per our discussion last night,” I said. “And you were standing right there. Did you get any details at all?
“Cops?”
“Maybe they have your full name, but wouldn’t they have your alias name?”
“Not if they have the names of my stock,” he muttered.
He seemed to consider things for a moment, then shrugged. With a motion, he stepped away from the car and into the park. I followed him, slipping into his arms as he made another motion.
“Your family is very strange,” he said.
“Your family wasn’t exactly normal either,” I pointed out. “And somehow I doubt your new family will be any more normal than them.”
“That’s probably true,” he said. “But I meant more of the support. I was under the impression that lone gender-based children were pampered and loved more, not alienated and pushed to the outskirts of the group.”
I made a sound and shrugged. “Which do you think was the descendant?”
“Honestly? I’m not sure your father is your father. I mean, you share no features with him whatsoever. Your mother is your mother.”
“Fun,” I grumbled.
“Which strongly suggests that Death kept up the stock after they were released,” Quin added. “It would explain your flavour, and why you were pushed to the outside of the group.”
“You don’t think one of them would have mentioned that?”
Quin looked at me and arched an eyebrow as if to ask if I were questioning his logic.
“Seriously? Now my family is a super secret stock for a vampire, great.”
“There are four thousand, or more, stock lines in the world,” Quin said. “Four thousand. If you count on each one being between a hundred thousand and a hundred people, then the average stock line is fifty thousand strong, give or take a few. Multiply that by four thousand and something like two hundred million people on earth are part of a stock line. That’s not even counting those who were simply not kept in on the secret. The pruned lines, so to speak.”
“And with him housebound, he’d keep stock nearby. Right, but he was complaining about old blood.”
“To keep us from questioning what was going on. He was older than any of his guards. They know he didn’t leave, but the system probably wasn’t perfect, given the fact that he had an entire plot with Margaret and none of it was on tape. Besides, it’s just a thought I had.”
“Of my supposed maybe father,” I grumbled.
“He sends men out to get more boys. If a girl is born, she’s pruned from the line. Never told about her heritage or her family’s background. Swooping in on married women was his favourite thing to do. Because then the child is raised and he can just slowly poison the boy’s mind.”
“So messed up.”
“It is, but you no longer look like a light wind will knock you over, so the topic of conversation served its purpose. I don’t like seeing you like that. You shouldn’t let people walk all over you.”
“You did for fifteen hundred years.”
“And look what it got me. Alone and abandoned just as I had a child of my own.”
“Please don’t call me your child, it dries me up so fast, I want to pull my pants up to about my chin.”
He frowned at me, so I decided that I had to elaborate.
“It does the opposite of making me wet.”
“Ah,” he said, looking around us. “Are you leading us to somewhere particular? Where is your favourite spot in this park?”
“Over there,” I said with a motion, pulling him along with me. “There are swings here, and people rarely come at this time of night.”
“At this time of night?” he asked, slipping away do that there was distance between us.
Before I could question the sudden separation, he reached down and entangled his fingers in mine, smiling as we continued. I couldn’t help but smile in response, our hands swinging gently between us.
Tonight is the first night of the rest of my life.
“I never have to see them again,” I said.
“No, you don’t,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll ever give in and allow that to happen again. It’s
a ridiculous thing to put a baby vampire through against their will.”
“How nice of you,” I said, reaching up to push a stray hair out of my face. “It feels weird, you know.”
“Because we spent the past week exploring your limits and erasing you,” he murmured. “I should be setting up tutors, but until we are a little more settled, I’ll have to be the one to teach you languages.”
The swing set came into view, and I walked to it, immediately dropping into the swing I always used. It was a familiar comfort, that swing pressed against my backside and the cold of the chains in my hands as I grasped them firmly. I swayed back and forth gently, moving with my feet as he walked behind me.
As I swung backward, his hands planted on my lower back firmly. He gave me a little push, and I moved forward. The next was just a little harder, and I went higher, but not as high as I used to go by myself. He let me swing almost to a standstill, then stopped the swing and wrapped an arm around me.
With one hand, he pulled my face upward and bent over me, capturing my lips with his. The world melted away, leaving just him and I, and our lips. The feeling of him pressed against me, of his tongue slipping into my mouth, was almost too much for me to bear.
He pulled away, giving me one last kiss to the lips before he made a sound at the back of his throat.
“For the most part, this is life,” he motioned around him. “It’s nice and peaceful. It’s whatever you want of it, if only you’d take it for yourself. We just have to get you to the point of being comfortable enough to do what you want.”
“And with meeting my parents out of the way, I suppose that concludes the night,” I said.
“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “Tonight wasn’t really about your parents. It was about you. What makes you tick. Why you applied to the interviewers in the first place and your plan for you and your future.”
“I didn’t have a plan,” I said. “I was going to school for biochemistry because my father told me to. Halfway through I realized that I didn’t want to use my debt to do what he wanted, so I switched to something that might have more adventure to it. Journalism.
“It was an impulsive and stupid thing. Not all journalists go into the field and explore things. Most just sit behind desks, writing little articles on fluff pieces and obituaries.”
