The Days Fly

by C. L. Quinn

  He’d gotten up late tonight and didn’t have time to get anything to eat before he left for work. Now, though, he was starving.

  He lifted the sheet and scanned the big man.

  “Come on, buddy. Let’s you and me get this done fast, deal? We both got somewhere to be. Now me, I have this roast beef sandwich with mashed potatoes waiting for me. There’s this pretty little Latino girl that likes to sneak me an extra-large portion when I get to the cafeteria before her shift ends. I’d like to make that tonight.”

  Jasper liked to talk to his patients while he worked. Not only did it take some of the loneliness out of the job, but he liked to think he might give them some solace…keep them company while they headed out to wherever the hell they might end up next.

  “Jasper!”

  He jumped when the booming voice called his name from just behind him.

  “Damn, Bill Bailey, don’t I tell you not to sneak up on me in here? Some freaking day some stiff is gonna start talking to me and I won’t know the difference. What?”

  “Got a homicide. Takes precedence over that one. Put it in storage.”

  With a deep sigh, Jasper looked at the guy he’d already uncovered. “Guess you ain’t my next dance partner, buddy. We’ll still get that waltz later.”

  Pulling the sheet back over him, Jasper wheeled the table into the storage room kept at a cool 37 degrees to preserve the bodies. The freezer unit, the next room, dropped to 19 degrees if they needed to put the stiffs on ice.

  “See ya,” he called out as he closed the door.

  He was so cold. Why the hell was he suddenly so cold? Temperature was not a problem on the spiritual plane, and physical discomfort just didn’t exist.

  So why the fuck was he so cold?

  He tried to move his hand, but it stayed still. It should have been no effort at all to push upright and stand, but that didn’t happen either.

  This felt wrong…and oddly familiar. Were they messing with him again? Only recently had he been able to purge her memory and find peace in this place where peace was supposed to be the great reward once life moved beyond the corporeal. Dead, like he had been for thousands of years when gauged by earthly standards. Those earthly standards, though, did not apply here.

  Using both arms, he pushed against a hard surface that felt frigid and metallic. Metallic? There was nothing metallic in this realm! There was only one conclusion…he was no longer in the realm of spirits!

  Cold, and pain, that was what struck him first. The darkness, the physical awareness, weight, sound, nothing familiar at all. He tried to reach someone…someone who had been there once, who would help him to know where he was and what he was meant to do.

  Niko, are you there? Niko, I need your help once again. If you are there, answer me. Niko?

  No answer came. Mies pushed against the darkness, pushed through his mind, searched, reached. He was alone. Wherever they placed him this time, he was alone and unprepared. All he wanted now was to scream at them and tell them they had no right to use him like this.

  Not only did they hurt him, they hurt everyone who came into contact with him. He would never forget her, her pain. Or Nikolai, who he prayed had gotten his body and life back.

  No! He would not be their pawn anymore. Mies was vampire and the universe had to answer for their choices this time.

  All his ranting and raving left him exactly where he was when he woke, almost too cold to move.

  But move he must. It felt like Lake Baikal, beneath the ice, when he lifted himself, bound to a human body for the first time in millennia, and the dying Nikolai, from certain death.

  So, calling upon his first blood talents, upon the magics that moved through his spirit amulet, Mies gathered the momentum of power and magic and thrust it forth. He would see and know where he was!

  Darkness was all that he could see at first, but light began to bleed through, so dim it barely registered. Once Mies convinced his eyelids to stay open, he tried to scan the space that he occupied.

  Musty, thick smells assaulted him, stale air and odd odors that made no sense. He couldn’t identify anything, where he was, what he saw, what he smelled, what he felt.

  Force, then, he thought, force through it all. You can do anything. Nothing is more powerful than a first blood vampire.

  Determination and magics brought through his amulet let him push the body upright, something moved and fell, and when he could see a few moments later, just barely in the small light available in the room, he realized it was a sheet that covered this body. It was naked and hurt worse than anything he’d ever known.

  Luckily, he could feel this body trying to heal itself, but he had already known by this point that he was inside another human body and that he was alive again.

  It took all of his strength to throw the sheet off and push from the table, but he had no control over the legs, so he crashed to the floor.

  The floor was colder yet, and he began to shiver, aware that he was bare in a big freezing room with no idea where he was. This would take all of his concentration, but he was an ancient vampire with godlike powers, he could do this, he could fucking stand. He would fucking stand!

  After lying there helpless for a period of time he did not know, Mies got his feet under him, but with no balance, he tumbled back over.

  A squeak caught his attention and he looked to his right as a large heavy door opened, letting warmth and light flood into the dark and cold room.

  A heavy-set, pale-skinned man entered, casually whistling, keys jingling in his hands. The man’s eyes flew wide when he saw the corpse sitting up.

  “Holy shit!” Jasper yelled, backing up, scrambling to step back from a man he knew was dead and should not be sitting up.

  “No!” Mies yelled, reaching out. “A little help here?”

  He smiled when he realized that he sounded like Nikolai.

  When Mies spoke, Jasper, even more shocked, looked into his eyes and Mies began the compulsion. He was going to need this man’s aid.

  “You sure you’re all right now?” Jasper asked, perched on the edge of the metal table beside the man who he had been prepared to cut up just an hour ago.

  “As much as I can be,” Mies answered, as he ate a strange sandwich with some kind of dark meat that didn’t taste familiar. It didn’t matter, it was succulent. At this moment, in this new body, his hunger was insatiable.

  “Jasper, can you order a car for me?”

  “Uh, you mean a taxi?”

  He processed the word and finally recognized what Jasper meant. “Taxi? Yes, a hired car, that will do.”

  Memory of how this went with Nikolai’s body in Siberia sharpened once he’d realized he was in another living body. He needed to get somewhere safe, take a good blood meal, and let his lifeforce convert this body to accept him.

  God, he didn’t want to go through this again!

  And yet joy invaded his heart…he wanted, needed, to see Sarah.

  Two hours later, Jasper left behind, properly wiped, no memory of him or the body he’d left in, Mies had finished a desperately needed blood meal. In a quiet alley, the small man who had donated the blood meal sat confused as his memory was wiped too.

  Mies had found a basement room with no windows so that he could shelter safely from daylight, because he knew that this body was going to crash.

  He’d looked into a mirror before he left the morgue at the alien face in the glass, the features unknown, a thick length of honey-colored hair long and filthy.

  Sprawled wide on a smelly mattress, legs and arms stretched out, naked, sweating, trying to manage intense pain that stretched from the strange hair color to the big toes, he knew that he would not leave this sodden mattress for some time.

  Seventeen

  Xavier’s visit had gone well. The man’s vivacious attitude towards life infused everyone in the apartment, and that included the tiny baby girl already showing cognizance well beyond that of normal babies her age.

  His devotio
n to Zia startled Sarah. In her nearly one hundred years in his household, they had never had a child. Honestly, if someone had asked her before, she would have been of the opinion that Xavier wouldn’t be interested in children, they’d be too annoying or of no use to him.

  In that case, she couldn’t have been more wrong. He was so enamored with Zia, he wouldn’t let anyone take her from him. Later, when Naji tried to take her into the kitchen to give her some of Olivia’s stored blood, he’d tsk’d that she’d prefer his fresh blood and that she would drink from him.

  “The lass has good taste, ya know she does. My blood will fix her right up.”

  “Thank you, Xavier,” Sarah said. There was no other response, Xavier wouldn’t believe anything other than his own opinion. But she truly enjoyed watching his connection to her daughter, particularly since they may be living with him someday.

  The baby had been content in his arms all night, but with no warning, she suddenly bucked and pulled away from him. Naji and Nikolai were startled by the abrupt change.

  “I swear I didn’t pinch the little thing,” Xavier explained as he tried to calm her down. When she began an ear-splitting wail, he handed her to her mother immediately.

  “It’s at this point that the child needs her mother.”

  “It’s at this point that everyone would agree with you. I don’t mind, but it’s strange how she went from being happy to inconsolable.”

  “I swear to ya, I didn’t pinch her,” Xavier teased. “But the next time I might, just to have a cause for this, ya little troublemaker.”

  Bouncing her in her arms, and doing the silly whispering thing that Park had taught her, Sarah was frustrated that she didn’t know why Zia continued to cry, but it was softer now, with just a few hiccups.

  “She’s calming down. I’ll go feed her and try to put her to bed. We keep her on a daylight schedule rather than the one vampires keep.”

  Xavier nodded, a finger curled around Zia’s. “Aye, it’s a good idea, especially since the day that she’ll lose the sun forever is within spittin’ distance.”

  Sarah sighed and carried Zia to their bedroom, slid her shirt off, and held her to her breast. Yes, the day would come when her daughter could no longer be in daylight, if her nature advanced like it should. Xavier was right that it would be here in the blink of an eye. The days fly faster than we notice, Sarah thought, never more aware of that than recently.

  Because there was still a chance that Zia may never convert naturally, Sarah had decided to delay conversion until she knew. She looked into the small face lying against her chest. Zia’s eyes were still wet, her cheeks streaked, her mouth attached with a death grip on Sarah’s nipple. She stared, though, intense for a baby, unflinchingly, in spite of the tears. It was unnerving.

  For several long moments, her hand moving in large caressing circles on the baby’s head, Sarah returned the stare. It seemed like…was she…?

  “What are you trying to tell me, Zia? I sense that you are, but I don’t know what it is. I’m sorry, baby girl, but your mama is a normal human woman and I can’t read you like a vampire could.”

  Once Zia finished feeding, Sarah dressed and carried her to the changing station to get her into her jammies. When she tried to put the baby down, Zia clung to her, those little watery eyes still on Sarah’s, unwavering.

  “I’ll check your diaper, sweetheart, but if that’s clean, I really don’t know what else to do.”

  Twenty minutes later, Sarah joined the others in the living room. “She’s down. I have no idea what happened, but I feel like I missed something that a vampire mother wouldn’t have.”

  “Ya did fine, Sarah. Babies cry. They’re the least rational thing on the earth.”

  Sarah shook her head. “No, I really feel that something specific was on her mind, that she needed me to know, but can’t express it. It’s disturbing to know that such a new baby is that aware.”

  “Ye’ll get used to it. Come, join us for this American dinner. I’ll be leavin’ tomorrow as soon as the sun drops. Thank ya for welcomin’ me to spend time with yer bairn.”

  “I hope you still feel that way if I have to come home to France.”

  Xavier surprised her by standing, formally pulling his shirt down to tidy up his appearance, and bowing.

  “Lass, ya have to have known that ya would always be welcome in my home. I have a love for ya, child, like I would my own, if I had one. And that tyke ya made, she’ll just bring joy to the dwellin’, so both of ya come home whenever ya need to.” He turned to Nikolai and Naji.

  “Ye’re both welcome too. That wee girl will need those who loves her as these years gather.”

  Tears welled in Sarah’s eyes now, too, because she’d never seen Xavier this gracious before. She’d always known, though, that he had it in him.

  Bowing, too, she moved closer to give him a hug.

  It took a few seconds for him to give in and accept the hug, but once he did, his arms moved around Sarah’s slight body and he found himself holding on. This type of intimacy was much harder for him than a quick fuck with a pretty woman. This intimacy required emotions that Xavier had always had trouble with. Even with his brother, even after all of these centuries, hugging did not come naturally.

  Still, though, this young woman had been born and raised in his household and he held her in high regard, cherished her even, surprised that tonight he’d told her so. It was in his heart and on his mind as he held the special baby that he did indeed hope would come to his keep outside of Paris.

  As abruptly as Zia’s change in manner, Xavier pushed Sarah away gently and said the one thing that was on his mind. “All right, now, who wants to get stinkin’ bombed?”

  Mies slept most of the next two days and nights. After the blood meal, he’d crashed for 24 hours, rose to find a second meal, and then crashed again. This body was converting completely, unlike what had happened with Nikolai. He suspected that he was the only occupant this time because of the DNA level changes and because he’d tried to reach the lifeforce that inhabited this body but found no sense of him. Whoever had been in this body was gone.

  What happened to the man this body had belonged to?

  “I’ll come back,” he whispered to the powers that made these awful choices, who may have robbed an innocent man of his life.

  In this case, though, it seemed that they had fixed the problem they’d created last time by leaving the body’s current lifeforce in residence. Even if Mies insisted on vacating, there was no one to come home to the body.

  He groaned and his mind returned to the one subject he couldn’t get off his mind. Sarah.

  For a brief moment, he’d considered sending a spiritual message out to see if he could reach her, but that was crazy and selfish. If he could reach her, he would just frighten her. A lovely, vital woman, Sarah would have moved on by now, would be with someone else. He had no right to even consider interrupting her life again. She’d made it clear that she’d never wanted to be with a vampire.

  It was only decent, though, to check on her and be certain that she was happy, that she’d suffered no ill effects from her time with him. Wasn’t it?

  For hours after convincing himself that he must check on Sarah’s welfare, he still felt total exhaustion, but he couldn’t sleep. He ran his hands over the chest of his new body, half again larger than it had been when he awakened, continued downward, and, yes, as expected, everything was enhanced, his fingers moving over the head of an excited cock. Things worked as they should, and a growling stomach showed that it wasn’t just the impressive organ that was hungry for attention. He needed food now, and a lot of it.

  Since sleep didn’t happen, Mies pushed up from the mattress and slid on the pale blue scrubs he’d liberated from the hospital. They barely fit over the big muscles now, so, first, he needed to find clothes, then food, then a generous amount of alcohol.

  Maybe with enough booze, he could forget about Sarah for a while. That left him with the awesome task
of wondering about whatever the fuck they wanted from him now.

  It was time to say goodbye, and Sarah didn’t want to do it. Xavier’s visit had been alternately an incredible blast of excitement, frustration, moments of sadness, and moments of illumination. She would miss him, deeply, and she told him so.

  “Xavier, I believe that I will take you up on your offer to return to Paris when the baby needs to.”

  He tweaked a curl and slid a big hand along her cheek.

  “Ah, lass, ye’re adventure to live like a normal person didn’t work out too well, did it?”

  “No. But I wouldn’t change anything. Mies was unforseen and I’d never wish away the time we had. You already know that the greatest moment of my life was giving birth to that little girl. I’m okay. Really.”

  “I think ya are. Ya always have been. Call me if ya need me.”

  He kissed her gently on each cheek and headed for the stairwell.

  Sighing with contentment, Sarah needed to see her baby right now.

  Dressed in the same type of clothes he’d worn when he shared Nikolai’s body, tight jeans and a short-sleeved tee shirt, he compelled a taxicab driver to take him to Sarah’s apartment. He didn’t have to worry that she might see him, of course, because she would never know it was him. She’d just notice a stranger looking at her. As lovely as she was, he knew that he certainly wouldn’t be the first strange man to stare at her.

  After he sent the taxi on its way, he stood across the street from her apartment for twenty minutes hoping that she might come or go from the building and he could get a long, desperately desired look at her. When she didn’t show up, he walked over to the building and sat on the steps, a war with his better nature whether he should go up and introduce himself to her or not.

  When the heavy door opened minutes later, Mies glanced back hopefully. Disappointed, he slid aside to allow an elderly woman room to come down the steps. She struggled with the first one, so he shot up to help her. When it became apparent that even with help, the steps were too difficult, he gently swung her up and carried her down to set her carefully on the sidewalk.