by Martha Woods
Her home was gone. The witches had burned it to the ground not long after she and Morgan had left. Veronica wished that she had stayed. She wished that she hadn’t been so selfish. She’d been too concerned with what was going on in Morgan’s pants to realize the danger that they were all in.
She looked up at Morgan. He was ending his own call, eyes dark as he looked at the screen. She flinched when he slammed the phone onto the sideboard table. For a moment she feared that it was worse than Tessa had admitted. But she could see the truth in his eyes. It pained Morgan that he hadn’t been there. It killed him that he couldn’t help his wounded friend.
Veronica clutched her knees to her chest, not feeling the least bit like a creature of the night. Morgan let his head fall back against the sideboard table in defeat. They sat like that for a while.
Veronica woke in an otherwise empty bed and her stomach plummeted. She feared the worst again. Ally must have called while they’d been sleeping. She had put him on a job and he hadn’t even thought of waking her. Veronica reached for a pillow and chucked it across the room.
She heard an oof sound as it hit another vampire. The pillow fell away to reveal Morgan, standing in the doorway with two warm mugs. Her lips parted.
“I know breakfast in bed isn’t a typical vampire tradition,” Morgan began, “but I thought I’d be nice. I guess you had other ideas.”
“I’m sure breakfast in bed is a very old tradition, only it screamed back then.”
Morgan huffed a laugh as he crossed the room and passed a mug to her. It was a cream colored mug that made the blood seem sacrilegious. She sipped from the mug, glad that she didn’t have to be neat and perfect for the human in the house anymore.
“What is on the agenda for the day?” Veronica asked.
“I do believe the humans call it Netflix and Chill.”
Veronica raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? And what does that entail?”
“I do believe that it involves laying in bed all night, binge watching television shows, and ending the night with copious amounts of sex.” Morgan crawled across the bed to capture her lips for his own. He tasted of blood.
“There’s nothing else you’d rather do?” Veronica liked the idea of laying in bed all day, Morgan curled around her. She’d never seen him sit so still for such a long time. All of this felt too good to be true. She felt a surge of guilt. Here she was, doing nothing while her brother was hurting.
She should be racing to him, not indulging in night long bouts of sex. Her stomach turned. It felt almost like Morgan was buttering her up for something. Like he was trying to keep her from thinking of her brother. She ducked his oncoming kiss and dove for her bag. Morgan huffed in anger behind her.
“I need a smoke and I don’t want to stink up your house.”
Cigarettes and lighter in hand, she led herself out of the house. On the front porch was a swinging bench. The whole place was so quaint that it felt surreal. Kristian liked his clean lines and old world accents, but sometimes that just felt like a museum. Veronica liked the homey, almost messy feel of this house.
There was a crocheted blanket thrown over the back of the couch, perfect for cuddling beneath. A shelf on a far wall was stocked with all sorts of novels. She had read some of the titles the night before, ranging from major literary works such as Anna Karina, to smutty paperbacks with worn in spines.
She wanted to wake up here, in his arms every morning.
They only had to deal with the Calder threat first. The witches were funneling into the U.S. little by little. Ally had reported that the witches were combing the country, looking for them. How long would it be until they found the beach house? Until they found this little valley?
Veronica closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. It was rude to blame the witches’ hunting on Tessa. She knew damn well why the witches were after them. It was her fault that the witches were after them. It was her fault that the witches were trying to systematically wipe out their coven.
What would the witches do once they caught her? Would they tie her to a post, force her to greet the sun? Would they carve her to pieces, use parts of her for their spells? Veronica had seen them do it to a human once. She’d been next on the list. Apparently, even though she’d fought her way out, her name never came off that list.
She wondered how her brother was doing. They had escaped the witches, but only barely it seemed. She shut her eyes against the cool night. If only she had been there, if she hadn’t left. Maybe then the house would still be in one piece. She would sacrifice the house in a heartbeat if it meant her brother was safe. She reminded herself that Tessa was there, feeding him until he healed. Ally would catch up to him. She would do her job.
It was okay that she was here, she told herself. You’re allowed to be happy. Right?
Finally, she flicked the butt of her cigarette into the sandy walk way before pushing herself up from the bench. Morgan was in the kitchen, papers spread across the dining table. When she came in his head jerked up. He smiled, the feral smile that set parts of her on fire. He swiped his hand over his work and came around the table to gather her into his arms.
Wrapped in the circle of his arms she felt the thoughts from earlier melt away. She could get used to this.
“Now,” Morgan whispered against her skin as he nuzzled her neck, “I believe that we have a date with a certain bed and some wifi.”
She fisted his shirt in her hands. “I agree.”
They spent the entire night in the king sized bed, enjoying one another’s bodies while Netflix played in the background, completely forgotten. Veronica lost herself in the rough feeling of Morgan’s fingertips along her skin. She needed to feel them in other places, to know if they would make her arch her back.
She was about to roll over and ask, when Morgan pushed himself from the bed. He ran his hand over his face, rubbing the stubble that wasn’t there. It would never grow in again. He had been changed the way he was right here and now, having just shaved his beard.
“Where are you going?” Veronica asked. She was trying to push her worry down, to lock it away in the corner of her mind. She was just being paranoid. Morgan had been giving her his all this whole time.
“I’m just going to call and check in on the other groups. I want to make sure that everyone is okay and they made it to their safe houses.” He grabbed his phone off the nightstand before leaving the room.
Veronica frowned. Why had he taken the call out of the room? He was calling her family. If anything, he should have stayed in the room. She pushed aside the rumpled blankets and crept out into the hall. Standing still, she listened for the sound of electrical static. Vampire ears made for great snooping.
Leaning her arms against the banister, she could hear Morgan’s conversation in the foyer downstairs. A small amount of guilt rolled through her and then vanished. Something was amiss.
“I’m telling you no,” Morgan hissed into his phone.
The voice on the other end was barely a whisper. All she could hear was a jumble of unintelligible syllables. Step by step, she inched down the stairs.
“No,” Morgan whispered. “You listen to me. My job is to stay here. That’s what we agreed on and I signed a contract. Are you going to go against your word?”
“You’re the only one I can trust to do this,” an electronically processed female voice said. The big boss lady, Ally. “It’s a quick in and out kind of thing.”
Veronica could hear the protest of the plastic phone beneath his hand. Life proof cases were not lifeproof when you had vampiric strength. Instead of giving Ally any kind of response, he slapped the red button on the screen and threw his phone down onto the table. His hands fell onto the back of a wooden kitchen chair. The wood groaned beneath his grasp, his arm muscles bulging for a moment then relaxing again.
She stepped down from the stairwell, softly padding over to where he stood. Her arms slipped around his waist and she laid her head on his back. He was made of stone benea
th her touch. They were both cold, beings seemingly made of marble, but beneath his touch she felt soft.
“Thank you,” she said into his skin.
He turned in her arms. His hands rose to hold her, one moving to stroke her long hair. “No problem.”
“What did Ally want you to do?” Veronica pulled away from him, chewing her lip.
He buried his face in her hair and breathed her in. “She needed me to track several witches up towards Michigan. She said that some of them were getting a little too close together and she wanted me to help scatter them so they can’t create a unified force.”
It sounded like a death trap to Veronica. It would have put him in the center of the witches radar and they would have come in from all sides. Especially if he took one of them out. His job would be the end of him, she was sure of it. Yet, he refused Ally this time. For now, he was safe here with her.
The warm, colored water rose around her neck as she soaked in the jet tub. Never before had she allowed herself the comfort of a modern bathtub. So many of them looked absolutely pathetic, but this one was wide enough for several people and the jet system intrigued her. Now, it pumped warm, glitter infused water around her cold skin. Bath bombs were an odd, yet wonderful invention.
She had just put the phone down. Kristian was doing better. Tessa’s blood had reinvigorated him, but had left Tessa drained. The proud human refused his assistance when he offered his blood in exchange. She knew what it meant. She knew that it would mean the beginning of her transformation. Veronica imagined that her brother was pushing the issue, especially in a time like this. It would help to have another vampire, not a defenseless human. Human Tessa would always be the weak point in their family, despite her gifts.
Cordless earbuds sat in her ears, pumping modern blues music into her ears so that she might try to lose herself. That was one of the things she grew to love over the years. The heavy beat and soulful words filled the space that she imagined her soul should have been. It got even better over the years with the introduction of electronic elements.
The world had changed in awful and wondrous ways in her undead lifetime. While technology had made it harder to feed on humans, it also made life much easier in other ways. They could board a plane and be across the world in a matter of hours. She could soak in a tub of colored water while listening to music while her cell phone was on the other side of the room.
The air in the room seemed to tighten for a moment. Her ears ached. Then, Charley popped into existence. She appeared on top of the closed toilet, one leg propped on top of the other. She threw Veronica a shit eating grin.
“What the hell are you doing in my bathroom?” Veronica growled.
The demon spun a short, black knife between her finger. Veronica watched it, waiting for her to throw it. “Got me a new boss. Salary pay and holidays off. First job was to watch your wrinkling ass. Wait, does vampire skin wrinkle in the water?”
Veronica’s hands rose to grip the edges of the tub.
“Why are you babysitting me?”
“Morgan got called out on a mission,” Charley said as she fiddled with the embroidered wash cloths on the counter. She grimaced, pulling out one with a cherub sewn into it. The cloth burst into flames between her fingers, gone in an instant. All that was left was a wisp of smoke in the air and a sprinkling of ash that fell to the floor.
“He’s working?” Veronica pulled herself from the tub, not caring that she was naked in front of the demon. Charley had probably seen worse during her time in hell.
“A tracker called in, the witches were getting too close to Southern California. Can’t say that I wanted to be on the front lines when they found the witches so I volunteered to bamf my ass here. Nice place you got.”
Veronica launched herself across the room. She couldn’t stand to hear one more word come out of the greasy girl’s face. Her hand wrapped around Charley’s throat, her force driving the girl up and back into the wall. They both heard the wall crack.
Charley threw her hands up in surrender. The black blade clattered to the floor. “Kill me here and I’ll be back with another body. Gotta say that I like this one. I’m waiting for this ugly duckling to grow into a swan.”
“Tell me where Ally sent him,” Veronica growled into Charley’s face. “Or, I will carve pretty symbols into this girl’s face. I could let the whole world know who your daddy is when you walk down the street.”
“Shit, you’re a mean one,” Charley managed to say. “He went to Santa Barbara. A couple witches flew in there and began moving towards Kristian.”
Veronica let the demon fall to the toilet seat. The demon raised a hand to rub her neck as she stuck her tongue out at her. She was sick of being left behind. She wasn’t some delicate porcelain doll to be put on a shelf.
“More witches are landing in Los Angeles. Others in San Jose. The know where you and your family is and they’re trying to surround you.”
Charley’s words made her pause mid-step. “And you’re telling me that Ally sent Morgan out alone?”
Charley shrugged. “He can take care of himself.”
Veronica shook her head. “When did he leave?”
“About twenty minutes ago?”
Veronica grabbed for her phone. Morgan’s number rose to the top of her mind. The phone rang a few times and she thought that he would ignore her call when he finally answered. She could hear his breathing on the other end.
“Turn around,” she demanded.
“I can’t ignore Ally’s mission,” he said.
“I’m not asking you to.” Veronica reached for a towel. “Come back to get me. I want to come with you.”
“I don’t think…”
“I didn’t ask you to think for me,” she growled. “Charley is coming, too.”
“Hey,” the demon shouted in the background. “I didn’t sign up for field work!”
“Your job is to protect me, right? Then you’re going to have to come along for the ride.”
The demon glared at her, crossing her arms across her chest like a sullen child. She wasn’t much more than that. Veronica wondered how old the demon inside the teenager was. Or, was the teenage behavior typical of demons? She wouldn’t have been surprised.
Veronica turned her attention back to the man on the other end of the phone call. “Are we in agreement or am I going to have to hunt you down myself?”
“Quit harassing the man,” Charley grumbled. The demon grabbed the pile of clothes Veronica had laid out before her hand latched onto Veronica’s arm.
The world spun away. There wasn’t time to scream as they fell through the universe. Her bare ass hit the leather seat of a car and the world came back into focus. They were in the back seat of the Shelby. It was incredibly cramped with the two women.
And Veronica was still bare naked. The scent of her bath bomb, jasmine and ocean water, filled the cabin of the car.
“Holy fucking hell,” Morgan shouted. The car swerved around the road, fishtailing before righting itself again.
“You’re welcome,” Charley said smugly.
“You could have let me finish getting dressed!” Veronica snatched her clothing from the demon’s grasp.
Charley winked a second before she disappeared. The teenager reappeared riding shotgun. Immediately, she reached for the radio, turning up the electropunk on the radio.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Morgan growled. His knuckles turned alabaster white on the steering wheel.
“Lady Vamp had her panties in a twist,” Charley yelled over the sound of her music. “Instead of making you turn around, I brought the argument straight to you. You’re welcome.”
Morgan cast a sidelong glare at the cheeky demon.
“You really shouldn’t be here, Veronica. Kristian is going to kill me once he finds out.”
“Then he won’t find out,” Veronica snapped as she attempted to tug on her skinny jeans in the back seat of a vintage muscle car. It was a feat that she managed it
at all. She regretted not adding underwear to the pile.
She had expected another marathon sex session, not a road trip into the hands of witches. She pulled her v-neck t-shirt over her head, finding herself braless as well. She was sure that she’d added a bra to the pile of clothing, if only to push her meager assets up into something presentable. Veronica eyed the demon in the front seat, wondering what she’d done with her lacy black bra.
“I wish you would trust me more,” Veronica said.
Morgan opened his mouth to respond, but Charley cut him off.
“Nope,” she said. “We aren’t going all TV psych talk show up in here. I definitely didn’t sign up for that kind of shit.”
Veronica suppressed the urge to reach around the seat and punch the demon in the head. Still, a small smirk touched her lips. The girl was a little entertaining, she had to admit.
“The mission was to lead the witches on a new trail,” Morgan debriefed them. “I was to make it look like I was running back to report to the coven.”
“With two vampires and their renegade demon, they will be more likely to pursue. I’m sure they want Charley dead for whatever is in that melon of hers. I know they’ll recognize me. They’ll want me dead for sure. This should be easy.”
Morgan’s eyes met hers in the rearview mirror. “It’s not the pursuit that I’m worried about. What happens when they find us? You aren’t trained for the field. I don’t know the first thing about working with demons.”
“Don’t worry about me, boss man. I can bamf on out of here if you want me to.”
“Don’t you dare,” Veronica grabbed the girl by her leather jacket. “You’re our ticket out of trouble if the witches corner us.”
Charley hissed in response. She leaned back into her seat, straightening her leather jacket. Veronica could see the marks that she’d just left with her long nails.
Veronica was scared. She didn’t want to admit it to anyone. It had been a long time since she’d been face to face with one of the witches. They blamed her for their High Priestess’s death. Hell she blamed herself. It had been her words that had spurred the witch hunt. The men had come for them, cold iron weapons at hand. No men survived the night, but a number of witches had fallen that night, as well. Including their High Priestess, Leticia.
