The Nebulizer Potion and the Electric Compass (Vampire DeAngeliuson Book 3)

by Kara Skye Smith

  Jessica makes a heart shape with her fingers.

  “Love you, too,” Drew says.

  Jessica goes back to the bedroom flopping down onto the bed, listening for the front door to slam shut. As soon as it does, she crawls from the bed, sneaking onto the balcony, where she 'hangs' from the upper left corner of the rafters – the side mostly covered by tree limbs - so that Drew and the neighbors (other than Mrs. Rita) hopefully won't see their nice neighbor, Jessica, hanging by sharp, claw-like toenails for a sleep. She smiles, doubly satisfied - a true moment of peace and tranquility after the excitement of the night ride and admits that Drew is getting over her absence rather rapidly. She is happy, truly, and she falls asleep thinking, “No one will know.”

  Jessica enters the lobby of muted, natural tones, and florescent lighting. She waits in a short line at the front desk until her turn where a blonde woman wearing a lanyard and a name badge asks, “How can I help you, Miss?”

  “I’m here to see doctor Wells,” Jessica says, nervously as vampires do not normally attend doctor visits - it’s quite a bit more than just out of the ordinary, or not protocol; it’s practically a violation of code! Not simply because of a difference of opinion during the medieval blood-letting days about the art of the archaic practice, and which levels bring back full cell count, but something else about witches and mid-wives ‘knowing what they were doing’ to be frank. This matter of Jessica’s, however, requires that she see a doctor; and, she has an appointment, today.

  “And you have an appointment?” asks the woman with a lanyard and a pinned on button that reads, ‘Type A or Typo’.

  “Yes, I do,” Jessica tells her, “3:30.”

  The woman scans the appointment book, “Here you are,” she says and marks off a check box next to Jessica’s name in the large book that lies on the desk between Jessica and the receptionist, then, “have a seat,” is all she says.

  Jessica sits down next to a baby stroller with a moving blanket inside it and dangling, plastic animals in bright colors. She hears a sweet little coo and an “Iem,” sound emitted from the blanket as the plastic things go swinging around. Jessica looks at the mother to smile, but her face is covered by the Latest magazine, a woman’s journal about the newest things. Another woman approaches with a blanketed bundle emitting a loud, sharp-sounding cough, and several whimpers. The woman looks worried and the women with lanyards call her in, first. Jessica’s name is called third. She grabs her coat and hurries toward the white-coated doctor’s assistant holding open a beige-colored door with the word ‘Lab’ written on it in white lettering.

  “In here,” the woman tells her, “and you can place your coat on the hook, over there. The doctor will be with you in a few moments.”

  “Thank-you,” Jessica says and then hangs her coat up as instructed. Another beige door shuts behind the assistant and Jessica looks around at medical illustrations and posters of mothers with babies on the walls. In this moment, Jessica feels a primal urge to, well, run. Ever since the blood-letting days, vampires and doctors have not mixed. Vampires know, when the cell count allows, in a patient with the common cold: feed. When the slightest sniffle is heard, preventative action requires a plasmonic intake and an upside down hang for a sleep. Doctors aren’t necessary for immortal beings, because disease is out of the question. Disease is a 100% mortal condition. Jessica, being married to a mortal - and that nonsense about having disavowed her vampire side - advises tomato juice with extra C and two days of regular rest, if and when, a cold should strike. This visit, however, requires a doctor’s advice; because, Jessica thinks she just might be ‘with child’ - an old world saying for having a baby!

  A baby bammypire, as Theopolis would say and since Jessica was first heard sweetly uttering the same words looking at (and talking to) her stomach, Drew has repeatedly referred to the uncertain, but high possibility of a new addition to the ‘family’ as Baby Bammypire. Therefore, in this case, a doctor is needed, and ever after those medieval witch hunts died down, vampires and midwives have had a long history of getting along.

  After all the testing wraps up and the results are in, the doctor announces, proudly “Looks like you’re going to have a baby!”

  “Terrific!” Jessica squeals, and then adds, “I think.”

  “You are happy about these results, aren’t you?” the doctor asks.

  “Yes. Very happy. I just have to tell Drew, now, that’s all. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled,” she says.

  “If you two have any questions, don’t hesitate to call,” she tells Jessica and hands her a card with the clinic’s phone number on it.

  “You can call this number after hours and a triage nurse can help you find whichever doctor is on-call.”

  “Thanks,” Jessica tells her and begins to exit the exam room.

  “Don’t forget your coat,” the doctor says and walks out past her with a clip board, “see you at the next visit. Should be in two weeks. Make the appointment at the front before you leave.”

  Jessica grabs her coat from the hook, reserved, but happy, about the news.

  “Drew will be simply ridiculous to live with about this,” she thinks about telling him at dinner and the melty smile he’ll give her, gushing about everything from baby booties to baby names.

  “A baby,” Jessica says out loud with a tender smile and sweet tone to her voice, and then suddenly she thinks about telling her Father the news, “another ancestor,” she says and hurries to the front to make her next appointment.

  At home, that night, Jessica makes Drew’s favorite potatoes. She adds parmesan, sour cream, chives, and pepper to the dish of sliced potatoes. She heats the oven and bakes them with roasted bird, an organically farmed chicken she’d picked up from the grocery on 10th. She also butters and heats a loaf of French bread; steams a pot of green beans on the stove. Just as Jessica hears the timer bell’s ring for the potato dish, Drew enters the apartment, home from work.

  “Darling!” he kisses Jessica’s cheek as he enters the kitchen, “Smells good in here,” he says, “just what are you cooking up?

  “O, just some of your favorite food. “He heads for the hall to take off his coat.

  “I saw a friend of yours today,” he calls out to Jessica, “Mrs. Rita!”

  “Nice,” Jessica says, “and I went to the doctor today, to see -”

  He reenters the kitchen and interrupts her, “You what?”

  “I went to the doctor today,” she says.

  “And?” he looks at her impatiently.

  “We’re having a baby,” she says then startles at the loud whoop and whallop sounds Drew lets fly from his mouth while he jumps around the kitchen until Jessica says, “Drew, the neighbors!”

  “Sorry, dear,” he says and then puts his hand on Jessica’s belly and actually bends down to say, “Hello!”

  “I think it is too early,” Jessica says, “he can’t hear you yet,” and laughs.

  “He can’t? What about her? Can she?” he asks.

  Then he says, “I don’t care - he or she - I just want to say ‘hello’. Hello!” he says again to Jessica and she laughs at Drew’s ridiculously melty smile.

  “You’re going to love every minute of this, aren’t you?”

  “I am!” he says and then he picks Jessica up and carries her to the table.

  “Let me serve you the dinner,” he says, “you must take it easy, now, you know.”

  “Not quite yet,” she tells him, “but the potatoes are done,” she smiles, “and you could serve me dinner, that’d be nice.” So he does. He takes the bird out and carves, he puts the green beans in a dish and sets everything on the table around Jessica. He sits down.

  “This is cause for a celebration,” he says, “and since we have to tell your Father anyway, why not ask him over - and Mrs. Rita too – Mattressa and, well, you know some of my people are going to want to get involved now, too.”

  “Let’s just celebrate, the two of us, tonight, and we shall worry about all of t
hat, tomorrow,” she says.

  “Yes, okay - to our baby and to parenting!” Drew says with a bite of potato on his fork.

  “To the three of us,” Jessica says with a green bean on her fork. They click forks as a toast. They hold hands across the table while they talk about the nervousness and excitement they harbor about bringing a new baby into their lives and their world. (Two worlds, dears. It is so easy to forget, sometimes - but not for long.)

  The next day, Jessica rushes over to her Father’s house to tell Mattressa, the house manager, in private.

  “You must not tell anyone what I have told you,” Jessica says, “we’re going to have a celebration to announce it, but-” she pauses and grabs Mattressa’s hands, “we’re going to have a baby!”

  Mattressa squeals with delight and the two of them jump up and down a bit, until her Father asks, “What’s going on?” and Mattressa tells him, “Nothing.”

  At home in the kitchen, Drew enters through the swinging door and slaps an envelope sized package on the counter top.

  “Here it is,” he says, “our itinerary. Two nights in London. One night in Cambridge and a 3-day stay at the Thaddeus Preference’s Ultimate Bed & Breakfast Cottages. He smiles at her over the sheet of paper he is reading. His smile is so endearing that she laughs.

  “When do we leave?” she asks.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “O, great ancients!!” She moves the pan to the side, off the burner, and hugs him tight, “Yay! You know, we should stop in and see Mansta and Fornadad. I'll get packed. Do you think it will be warm? What are you going to pack?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Encouragement is Half

  the Enchantment

  After arriving in England, Jessica and Drew rent a car to drive through the countryside, out to Heavonshire from London. Destination: Thaddeus Preference’s School of Superior Inferiorism - the lovely alma mater where the couple first met. Jessica is famished upon arrival, so before leaving London, they stop to eat at another haunt from their past. Peoneastlies, who also went to Thaddeus - and who saw Jessica last at the Underworld Castle - calls to say she is also in London, so Jessica insists on the phone that she join them for lunch, or at least an iced tea and quick chat about her travels. Drew thinks about reminding Jessica of the promises she’d made at that exact café in London; but, after Peoneastlies joins the table and the conversation, everything about their vacation takes on a new twist.

  During the drive, Jessica stretches her arm out the window allowing the cool breeze to push against it. The gentle rush of air pressure takes her back - this time not with the adorable Drew who is being an absolute dear on the trip, so far - to her Night Ride excursions and the thought of how happy she would be if Drew could join up and go along on the haunts.

  “It would be just like today,” she nearly blurts out, turning from her view of the countryside to watch Drew’s worried expression as he maneuvers driving on the opposite side of the road - at least in his opinion, from where he first learned to drive.

  “I forgot how much fun this is,” he yells over the rushing sounds of wind through the open windows.

  “It really is fun!” Jessica says about the drive, instead of the Night Haunts suggestion she’d like to make.

  He shouts again over the noises of driving, “I thought this trip would be nostalgic, but it seems, instead, all new. This trip is shaping up to be something all its own, wouldn’t you agree?” Jessica nearly glowers.

  She looks at him in the way a wolf at the door might look at Red Riding Hood, “I am so glad you said that, Drew. I know this trip will be, for you and me, like a new door we are going through. A new dawning, entirely,” she says, hiding the canines at the sides of her smile. Drew chats about how different Peoneastlies appeared, and how he couldn’t quite get over the changes in her. Jessica chats about esoteric thoughts as though they are new roads: everlasting life, different perspectives, and things of that nature; and, due to the rushing breeze and the motor, they each talk excitedly without worrying much about what the other is saying.

  “This is just what we needed,” Drew says, not really knowing what it is he’s agreed to.

  “Yes,” Jessica finalizes the decision, “it truly is.”

  A day of driving begets a joyous, but worn out couple pulling the car to the side along the lane of Thaddeus Preference’s Ultimate Bed and Breakfast with a slightly weary cheer of excitement. Shown to a quaint cottage for their stay, they survey the locality filled with overstuffed armchairs, tea tables, and chic English Country furnishings, with a set of French doors that open out to a garden courtyard filled with flowers and sculptured, cement castings from the past; some date back to when Preference, himself, first opened the college and invited students from the area to attend.

  Jessica breathes in the perfumed scent from a hanging pot of gardenia and a climbing bougainvillea.

  “This is exquisite!” she tells Drew.

  “Great, isn’t it?” he says turning to the sound of a slight knock upon the door.

  “Tea!” says a sweet, little woman with rather astonishing hair - a sort of mushroom shaped dome, teased out to the size of an eagle’s nest.

  “Well, um, hello,” says Drew, then he grabs a tray from her hands as cups begin to tinkle while she walks into the room - her hair nearly grazing the door jamb on both sides.

  “Tea, how thoughtful!” exclaims Jessica wandering in from the garden courtyard, “just when I thought things couldn’t possibly get any better than this. I am so ready for something just like tea, aren’t you, Drew?”

  “Right, here,” the lady points to a tea table near two armchairs.

  “Yes, I am,” Drew mentions while managing to set down the tray on the table without spilling over any teacups or crashing the whole business to the floor.

  “And biscuits!” says the woman, cheerfully, brushing her hands on her rose print apron. “Thank you, so much,” Jessica says, “would you care to have tea with us, too?”

  “Yes, please stay,” Drew says pulling up another chair, “we have so many questions for you about the place - the cottages, anyway. We both lived here when we went to school.”

  “So you two are the Thaddeus graduates, then,” she says and takes the cup of tea that Jessica has just poured for her into her hands. She wears many rings on her fingers and one, Jessica mentions with a stone in it much like Jessica and Drew’s wedding rings.

  “Eye of serpent fire,” the woman says, “almost can’t find it any more. I am surprised you two found a jeweler with such rare stones - and two of them, at that,” she says.

  “They’ve been in my family,” and then both Jessica and the woman recite at nearly the same time, “for as long as I can remember.” They smile at each other, then, having nearly started a game of ‘I thought you’d say that’, and Drew laughs.

  “You didn’t tell us your name,” he says to her.

  “Lydia Headlong,” she says.

  “Are you the owner of the cottages?” he asks, “and has it always been a bed and breakfast place?”

  “No, no, I’m not the owner,” she says, “and I guess you didn’t know, but I’ll tell you. It was first owned by the great founder of the College, run as a sort of dormitory for the instructors - in the very beginning,” she says.

  Then, a gardener enters the courtyard and begins to prune a few of the flower bushes, while another man walks past the open, double, French doors. The woman who is nearly as quaint as the cottage asks Jessica, “What’s the matter, darling, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Again they both finish the end of the sentence, at the same time.

  “You two are on the same wave length,” Drew laughs and then has a drink of tea.

  “I would have thought you were, too,” says the woman, looking at Jessica from the corners of her eyes.

  “Yes, well, I thought I saw a professor from Thaddeus - in the courtyard,” she explains.

  “Probably,” the woman says, “there are still many who come and g
o, here, you know?”

  “I see,” says Jessica.

  “Great place!” Drew says emphatically, “and now that we’ve had our tea, why don’t we venture over to the old alma mater and have a walk around. It will be nostalgic. You can come with us Lydia, tell us more about what you know - you’re fascinating to talk with,” he tells her.

  “I must not,” she says, “we’ll see you two when you return for the night, then,” she says and bids them good-bye for the rest of the afternoon.

  Before getting into the car, Jessica fakes a need to grab a sweater and go back to the room, by herself - only for a quick moment - to check the courtyard for the instructor. Sure enough, there is her Night Ride friend of old.

  “How charming to see you, here, Jessica,” his smile wraps across his face in a way that reminds her of a crocodile from a favorite children’s book illustration.

  “What-,” she asks but is interrupted.

  “The devil am I doing here?” he asks.

  “Well, yes. I don’t suppose Father sent you to check up on me. Bats! It really is like being back at school,” she says, and then adds, “I’m in a hurry, Drew is waiting for me.”

  “Not that I owe you an explanation, but I’ll provide one as a courtesy, nonetheless, to get you on your way, then. I am teaching, come this semester. A little project.”

  “I’m sure,” says Jessica.

  “I am in the belief that old Thaddeus, once a scholar, here, who started the College, was also - shall we say - a tried-and-true member, of-the-blood, you know.”

  “Yes, I know,” says Jessica, “so you’re staying until you find a place to live?”

  “Exactly,” he says, “and you didn’t let me finish. It seems he then passed on.”

  “But, you said he was of-the-blood, tried-and-true - I know what that means,” she whispers, “he’s one of us - a vampire.”