by Aya DeAniege
“Yes, I said she was a werewolf or a shapeshifter,” Helen said with a shrug.
“Moore knows,” I said.
“I think he figured it out in the cafe. What do we do about that?”
“He’s not going to tell anyone. I’ll tell the Council though, and see if we can’t put him to use. Having people on the force is helpful.”
“What about the stock the Council has in the police force?”
I chuckled. “That’s an old bag of bones.”
“I think that saying means something other than what you want it to mean.”
“Stupid English,” I muttered under my breath, then repeated the saying in its original language, trying to make the right connection.
Magician’s trick?
At least Wraith was useful for something.
“It’s a flash over here while things happen over there,” I said out loud.
Helen considered me for a moment, then nodded twice.
“You tell them that so that they assume the Council has them under control. Because they would feel like they were being watched, it might even change how they talk about vampires in the force.”
“If you change the language, you can change the belief system over time. It takes a long time to do, but in four hundred years, vampires will be accepted and able to walk with mortals like we’re equals.”
“You couldn’t do that for women, homosexuals, or mental health?”
“Who said we didn’t?” I asked. “About four hundred years ago the crazy misogynist, who believed he was possessed and that mental health didn’t exist, stopped having a role in vampire life.”
“In his defence, he literally was possessed.”
“If I’m not allowed to make him out to be a victim, neither are you.”
“True, but it is a case where the word literally was used in its literal definition, don’t I get points for that?”
“No, what did you tell them?”
“I slipped up and said ‘we’ once, rather than use the term vampire or baby. I’m sorry.”
“A mistake like that could cost you a great deal of agony. Maybe even your life one day.”
“I know, I’m sorry.”
“If we weren’t dealing with this…”
The threat hung between us unspoken. Helen reacted just the same. Her face fell, eyes dropping to the ground as Daisy growled between us. It was hard to tell in the dim light of the street, but I thought a grey colour had come over Helen’s features.
Those words unsaid had more power over her than the pain I had wanted to threaten to inflict.
“Mistakes like that cannot be allowed to stand, mortal morals or not. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I do,” she said to her feet.
Then she looked up at me. At first, I thought she was challenging me, but then I realized that she was staring about my forehead. Not making eye contact, but still facing me.
“Helen, most of the world shows submission by looking away,” I said.
She confirmed my suspicion when she turned her head towards the street, then turned away entirely, reaching for her face. I closed the distance between us and pulled her into my arms, holding her as she cried and not understanding why.
Some modern humans don’t handle conflict well.
Helen handled it just fine. Set a fire under her feet and she would stomp it out, then give you a smack for trying such a stupid thing.
She had been fine until I had corrected her gaze. That much I understood, I just didn’t understand why that of all things brought tears to her eyes.
Helen pushed at me slightly and sniffed.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said weakly.
“You should look away in submission, not at me. Who told you to look at the person who was chastising you?”
“I dunno, probably my father.”
I adjusted my lips as Daisy growled again. The idea of setting her boys on Helen’s family was an urge that was growing. Having Daisy eat Peter would have just been marvellous.
Wait, why don’t we like him now?
I didn’t know the answer to that question, but I trusted that little whispering feeling. Hugging Helen, I released her finally and turned to Daisy.
Who was standing with her hackles raised, growling at the northern wind that came tumbling down the street.
“Cold northern wind, Helen?”
“Bau,” Helen said in a whisper.
With the wind came a howling, the sound of a human voice wrapped up inside the wind and twisted into madness.
It’s an odd description, but trust me, if you heard it, you’d know what I meant.
The sound of the voice didn’t seem to disturb the mortals walking down the street. They continued as if the wind were nipping at their heels, but didn’t raise their heads to investigate the sound.
“You hear that?” I whispered.
“Why are we whispering?” Helen asked.
“Because witches listen with the wind,” I responded, slipping away from Helen.
I reached casually for Daisy. Kneeling, I made a motion as if I were scratching her neck and reassuring her. As I did so, I slipped off the collar. Daisy bolted into the wind, her wolf voice raising up in challenge.
The witch voice responded to the challenge.
“I’ve never seen a witch and wolf fight before,” I said, praying that the fear that was beginning to bloom didn’t reach my voice.
Bau couldn’t kill us. That’s what I told myself as Helen took off running ahead of me, shouting something about catching the dog. I took off after her, my legs feeling wooden, heart pounding in my chest.
Breathing is optional.
Fear overrode the control we had over our bodies. It could cause our powers to flare, which could cause problems later on. Or problems during, if your entire attack revolves around being confident and strong.
And not against a witch. Who, rumour said, could take the power of a vampire and turn it back on him. If anyone could figure it out, it was the woman who had spent centuries wandering the wide world alone and miserable, plotting for this very day.
We’ve done this before.
Just like that, Wraith slipped forward, and Quin stepped back. Our footfall became steadier, the heart slowed, and he pulled in breath in slow, measured swallows, all the while telling the body that everything was fine.
I’d like to be whole again.
“You and me both, boy. Let’s get through this with minimal whining.”
Catching up to Daisy was simple. It was Helen who was left behind in the end. She was huffing and puffing, but I couldn’t expect more of someone so newly turned. Mortality still nipped at her heels, and she hadn’t exactly exercised while human.
The cityscape around us changed, I lost track of how many times we turned, or how many people we almost stumbled into. Not just homeless or drunks, but also the mortals who were taking part in the blooming nightlife that the Council had encouraged.
Those people didn’t think much of my chasing after a dog, perhaps thinking that she had simply slipped the leash. That leash was back by the cafe, sitting on the sidewalk.
Some of those people watched me running by in interest. Those ones might have asked themselves if a vampire was chasing me. They might even watch for Helen, struggling along behind me and think she made for a poor vampire.
“Heel!” Wraith howled.
Because it was the only word that might have stopped Daisy, and only then because she swung around and lunged for my leg. I danced backwards as the wolf growled at me, her eyes beginning to glow faintly red.
“There’s the rage we need,” I said, coming back to myself entirely. “But give it a minute. If she gets too far behind, our target might swing around and attack her.”
Daisy growled at me again, teeth bared, mouth open. The threat was obvious but was also not one I’d engage in. She meant to bite and snarl more, to punish me for giving her a command.
&n
bsp; None of her people were around. It was just her and I. As much as I cared for Daisy and I put on a show around others, I was more afraid of my dead Maker than I was of her. He had caused me true pain. All Daisy had done was cause destruction. Mutilated my body.
“I’m not doing that, so just drop it or go home,” I said sternly.
She growled for another moment, then swung her head back the way we came and growled again.
“You bite her to hurt me, and I will end you, last of your title or not,” I said sternly.
Daisy’s hackles raised and she stalked back the way we came. I frowned and followed her as her growl lowered to nothing. She crouched lower, sniffing at the air.
I had seen a wolf do that before, but when?
Remember Emanuel?
Dimly. I struggled with my memories, jumbled fragments coming up, faces of different vampires.
Give you a hint, they have his balls.
I shuddered and looked down at Daisy.
If she had been intent on ‘hunting’ Helen, she would have simply walked up to her. That was the trouble with having a smart predatory. They knew when to hide the fang and when to use sweetness to get close instead.
Daisy was hunting Bau, who was close enough that the wolf wasn’t certain just how far away she was.
The problem there being that Bau had spent time around wolves before. She would know their hunting habits, which were engrained in them like so many other instincts. Those habits had barely changed as civilization had arisen, because all prey fought the same way.
“She’s rubbed up against something,” I muttered, looking around us, alert as Daisy moved forward, sniffing at the air.
Her predatory, animalistic side was taking over. When that happened, the wolves salivated something that was an absolute terror for vampires. Burned like acid, except it didn’t eat the flesh, so it just hurt until it had passed out of our systems.
The problem with that being that reasoning with Daisy would be very difficult, if not near impossible.
I reached forward and did the stupidest thing anyone could do to a full-grown wolf. I grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and yanked her backwards, lifting her off her front feet and only on her hind legs, I pivoted her to the side and shoved her away.
She howled, head turning to nip at the air near my arm. I yipped, Helen shouted my name from down the street, and something slammed into the concrete where Daisy’s head had been a moment before.
It all happened in the span of about three seconds. I spent the next three staring at the object on the concrete, trying to register what I was looking at.
A mace?
I hadn’t seen one of those in centuries. The black wood of the handle and most of the head sent a trickle of fear through me. There were silver grains running through the black, fine and sparkling, catching every faint light source and reflecting it like the noonday sun. There were little studs of metal alloy nailed into the head which shuddered like a hellhound’s teeth did right before their lethal attacks.
RUN!
The bonus of a mace was its weight, bring it up and get it in motion, physics did the rest. The downside of a mace was, well, its weight. For a woman of Bau’s size, even with the muscle she had on her frame, the mace was heavy.
As I gawked, she braced herself. When she began to lift the mace, I snapped out of my trance and looked up, meeting her eyes.
Glowing like there was sunlight behind them.
Run, damn it, run.
I didn’t take the time to bat Wraith away, instead reaching out and grabbing the mace, thrusting down as she tried to raise it up. I reached out and grabbed her hair, yanking it to one side as I held the mace firm with my other.
Physical pain is an option. Even when magic is involved, pain is an option. You may not be able to block pain long when magic was involved, but you could do it for a few seconds.
Allowing you, for example, to disarm a witch and pull her hair like you were in a playground wrestling match. But yank someone’s hair sometime, their head follows it. She could have pulled away, losing a part of her scalp as she did so, but instead, she winced and followed her hair.
You’d think someone of that age would be numbed to the pain, and know better than to have long hair during a fight.
I tossed the mace to the side as a tingle began. Furious, I reached with that hand and slapped her across the face. The tingle turned to that familiar pin prickle of skin on skin with the underlying thrum of the bones of my hand contacting with the bones in her face.
I was not trying to physically hurt her, however. I just needed a moment.
As I struggled to reach that place, Daisy growled and latched onto Bau’s arm, giving herself a hard shake. There was something very angry about that growl. Bau tossed Daisy aside and reached for me. I batted her hand away.
Sometimes vampire fights look like slapping matches. I apologize, but that’s just the way it is. Both of us were struggling to reach for powers, or perhaps in her case magic. Everything we did was to distract the other while giving us time gain the calm we needed to work our power.
Just because I could use my power on a witch, didn’t mean that I could get through whatever warding she had. Her magic may have been protecting her. Normally, all I needed was a flicker of thought. Instead, it looked like I was standing there like a fool.
In reality, I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t the kind of dead that didn’t come back to life. It should have worked. There was no reason why it shouldn’t have.
Maybe I needed something more, a little calmer or a little more angry, just to cross that extra distance.
There was a fwump sound. One second Bau was standing, the next she was gone. My eyes followed her, but I didn’t quite understand because I was so used to fighting alone.
Helen had tackled Bau. Then she proceeded to beat on the other woman like a jealousy, crazy girlfriend might. Bau struggled with the slighter woman as I took a step back and took in a small breath.
Die, die, die, am I helping?
I batted Wraith away. There was what could best be described as a mental slap fight, which neither of us won because we were of equal strength and already knitting back together.
Or, here’s and idea… RUN.
I felt the swirl of magic a moment before Helen was tossed. As she flew through the air, Daisy and I both lunged for Bau. Hands on the woman, I felt sparkles in the air. Little, almost giggling bursts of energy that fluttered around us.
Fae magic was like that, right before—
The world seemed to explode.
Scrambled sounds, static, a thump.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” I said, huffing and puffing as I pressed against the back of a building.
“Maybe if you want to hide, you shouldn’t huff and puff,” Wraith grumbled.
He seemed more annoyed than usual, perhaps even a little baffled. That made me feel a little bit better about running screaming like a little girl.
“Since when do you run from a fight?” I snapped.
“Since African blackwood with hellhound teeth for studs imbued with fae magic carried by a witch who has fed on one of the ones we’ve never met because they’re scary as could be. Clearly, she’s trying to maintain her physical, which means she’s trying not to lose the magic of the blood.”
It took a moment for my mind to register what he had said, and what he meant. That the weapon Bau had been carrying was what changed things. Wraith had run because of that.
“Are you saying she’s made another tool?”
“I’m saying she’s made something. It hurts, a lot, that doesn’t mean it’s a tool,” he huffed out, looking around the corner.
“So, drop it,” I said.
“No, because the best way to test this is to hit the bitch in the face.”
Wraith was sounding a lot more like a disgruntled man and a lot less like a predator with every passing second. It might have been the pain doing it to him, or it might have been his confusion
.
“Where’s Quin?” I asked.
Wraith stiffened and turned to me. His eyes flowed up and down me. Then he frowned ever so slowly.
“How did you know?”
Even he didn’t know that I could tell the difference. I wasn’t going to just come out and say that, though. It took a moment, but I came up with a quick explanation that didn’t sound accusatory or cross a boundary between Maker and Progeny.
Basic vampire rule: you cannot tell your maker’s split personality that he sounds violent and vicious like his Maker had the night you met. It would not end well.
“You’ve been represented as a masked figure for almost all of your creation. When you took over, Quin’s very expressive face went still like a mask. Good to know you can frown though.”
I found it hard to believe that he hadn’t realized that I had noticed the difference before. It was also quite interesting, that the two of them thought that no one else could tell the difference.
“I can do other things too,” he grumbled.
“Show me later. Is she there?”
“No, she may have retreated. Bau is one. I am two. While he awakens, I can continue fighting as if we weren’t attacked. She is one. Her foundation is shaken.”
“Makes perfect sense.”
“View the mind as a house. Quin and I are two houses. She is one. Whatever that was, lit their houses on fire. In order to survive, they have shut everything else down in order to put out those fires. But I am still here.”
“The body is a lot, the mind a house. Split personalities are lots of little houses on one lot. I think that makes sense. Why am I not affected by that?”
He seemed to consider for a moment. “Good question. Let’s get Daisy and retreat to a safe place before we continue dialoguing like idiots who should be killed.”
“But—”
“She’s mortal, stab a werewolf, and it dies.”
I swore and rushed back around the corner, headed straight towards Daisy. Screw being smart about it or looking around to see if there was a trap. I dropped to my knees at her side, setting a hand gently on her ribcage. Under my hand, there was a shudder.
“Daisy?” I whispered.
A little whine was my answer. I turned and looked up at Wraith as he approached slowly.
