by Donna Ansari
Fortunately, neither of them tried to stop me, and I opened the door and walked outside. David followed a few seconds later.
“Okay, what the hell was that last bit about?” he asked. “Do you mean to tell me that you’re responsible for all this?”
“I didn’t mean to summon a demon. Amy asked me to help her with a spell to find her father.”
“And of course you guys would have no way of knowing that she’s half demon.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Except, you know, now that I think about it, she does seem to have powers that go way beyond those of other witches.”
“Right, like when she drained all the witch power out of her mother. Why did she do that again?”
“She was saving me,” I reminded him. “Her mom wanted to use me to take control of the vampires in New York.”
“Hmmm, that’s right.”
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” David paused. “It’s just from what I know about Amy from having lived with her the past few weeks, she doesn’t seem like the most selfless person.”
“What exactly are you saying?”
“Whether it’s conscious or unconscious, she has been acting fairly demon-like for as long as we’ve known her,” he said. “I’m not saying she didn’t want to save you, but she might not have been so quick to do so if it wasn’t also in her best interests.”
Suddenly I remembered something. “A few months ago, she said that she ate an entire coven of witches. I wonder if that meant she drained them of their powers?”
“You didn’t think to ask any follow-up questions?”
“Nope. At that moment all I was thinking was ‘Zombies!’”
“Oh, right.” David said. “So what should we do? Neither one of us has any power to speak of. How are we going to stop a demon and his teenage daughter from wreaking havoc on the city?”
“Maybe we should just try talking to her about it. As far as she knows now, her spell didn’t even work.”
“We’ll see.”
By then it was afternoon, and Amy was home from school. She was in her usual spot on the sofa and gasped at David when we came in.
“What happened to you?” she asked him.
“I’m no longer a werewolf. It’s almost as if all the magic has been sucked out of me.” He paused, and then said, “Now where have I heard that before?”
“Dunno.” Amy shrugged, turning back to the TV.
David stood in front of the screen and said, “Don’t tell me you find this carpet cleaner commercial more interesting than the fact that everyone in the city who’s magical is having their abilities taken from them.”
She sighed and stared down at the remote, pressing a few buttons for good measure. “Of course not. I just had a bad day.”
“Why? Because there wasn’t anyone left whose powers you could eat?”
I grabbed David’s arm. “Stop it. She doesn’t know what’s happening.”
David’s eyes glared into mine, and I was suddenly happy he could no longer shift into a werewolf. “Oh, she knows.”
“No, she doesn’t.” I continued my hold on his arm, because he looked like he wanted to smack the girl.
“Yes, I do,” Amy said, so softly that it took a moment to register.
“What?” I gasped at her, letting go of David.
“I told you!” he yelled. He started to walk toward her in a somewhat menacing fashion.
Amy shook her head at him. “Please, what are you going to do? Nibble me to death? Scratch me with a hangnail?”
She had a point, and David stopped in his tracks and crossed his arms over his chest instead. “What do you know, exactly?”
I was starting to find this whole human thing wearying, and sat down on the sofa next to Amy.
The girl looked at me and asked, “You’re not mad at me too, are you?”
“That depends. Did you knowingly ask me to summon a demon with you?”
“No, well yes, well sort of. I didn’t know for sure, but I had some suspicions.”
“When did you get these suspicions?” I asked. “And what were they exactly?”
“Well, obviously I’m a more powerful witch than anyone else I’ve ever met.”
I nodded. While it sounded obnoxious for her to say it, it was the absolute truth.
“My mother was probably second to me, so for a while I thought that if my dad were to also be a witch, it would explain my powers. And for a little while I did think that Gregor might be my dad, but obviously I had to get my looks from somewhere.”
I nodded a second time. Like Gregor, Diana was very tall and solidly built, with dark hair and eyes. Neither one was short, delicate, and fair with light eyes, like Amy. And like the man I had met in the club.
“But obviously what really did it was when I looked into my mom’s brain and saw everything.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “When was this?”
“You don’t remember? You were there too, but you were in your boyfriend’s brain.”
“Oh, right.”
That I remembered. Amy and I had needed to go into their minds to sever a psychic connection without damaging them. That was when I had discovered that a centuries-old vampire has even more baggage than I do, but Amy had never told me what her own cranial excursion had revealed. I did vaguely remember her uttering some manner of menacing threat, though.
“What did you see?” I asked.
“Enough,” she said. “From what I was able to see, she wanted power so much that she summoned a demon and had a baby with him. And also that she was willing to sacrifice that baby to get what she wanted.”
“But she didn’t go through with it.” I stated the obvious. “That’s something, right?”
“Only because I look human enough to make her doubt who my father is. So maybe she wasn’t enough of a bitch to kill me at birth, but by now I bet she wishes she had.”
“He looks just like you, actually,” I said.
Amy smiled, just a bit. “He does? No cloven hooves or horns?”
“Not that I could see,” I agreed.
David had been so silent I almost forgot he was there, but now he spoke up and said, “It looks like we’re all on the same page with what’s happened so far, but what I want to know is, if you had strong suspicious as to who your father was, why did you let this demon loose in the city?”
Amy jumped up and stood in front of David with her fists clenched. “He’s not some random demon—he’s my dad! And I didn’t intend for this to happen. I used my blood in the spell to call him to me. I just wanted to meet my dad!”
As the teen was yelling, her expression changed and she slowly turned and faced me. “You!”
“Me, what?” I asked.
“I let you drink my blood before we did that spell. That must have been what confused him! That’s why he went to you instead of me!”
“Umm, sorry.” I thought back to the night I had been turned back into a human. Although the details were as fuzzy as ever, I vaguely remembered the man I had met asking me if we knew each other. “He’s probably looking for you right now.”
“I should do another spell to find him,” Amy said. “And this time I’ll do it by myself!”
Had she forgotten that she was the one who asked me for help? “Sure,” I said agreeably. “That sounds great.”
“Are you sure that’s the best idea?” David asked. “Look at what happened the first time you summoned this demon.”
“I told you to stop calling him that!”
“What is his name anyway?” I asked. “Does it have anything to do with the symbol we showed you?”
“Yeah, right!” Amy yelled. “Like I’m going to tell you anything! I’ll just deal with this myself!”
With that, the girl abruptly turned and stormed out the front door.
“What did I say?” I asked David.
“Dunno,” David said. “But one thing I can tell is she’s at least half a teenage girl.”
“And where is she going?” I asked of no one in particular.
He ignored my question and said, “I told you she knows everything.”
We could her Tammy’s voice from just outside and then a shrill scream from Amy.
Before either of us could react, Tammy came into the room. “What’s her problem? I didn’t even get to tell her that we found out what the symbol means.”
After we filled Tammy in on what we had learned from Diana, she said, “It’s good that that brat drained her magic I guess. And also that the coven kicked her out. Modern witches don’t really go for the child sacrifices, you know?”
“That’s good to know,” I said. “But what does that symbol mean?”
“Oh, right. It’s the demon’s name written in runic symbols.”
“And what is his name?” I asked.
“We’re still looking into that,” Tammy said. “In fact, the coven is coming over tonight for a research party, if you’d like to join us.”
“Wouldn’t it be simpler just to beat it out of that little witch or her witch mother?” David asked.
Tammy narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t use the word ‘witch’ like it’s a derogatory term.”
“He has a point though,” I said.
“Let’s go with one night of research before we start beating anyone,” Tammy said. “Are you guys joining us?”
“No,” we both said simultaneously.
“Why not?” she asked. “David, you’re not a werewolf anymore.”
“I have a shift at Starbucks tonight,” he said, which may or may not have been the truth.
Tammy shook her head at him, and then turned to me. “What about you, Em? We would welcome your help doing research even though you’re not a witch anymore.”
“I just don’t really like the people in your coven,” I admitted.
She frowned at me. “It’s your coven too, you know.”
“But you just said I’m not a witch anymore!”
“That doesn’t mean you’re out. We don’t discriminate against those who lack magical potential when it comes to participation in celebratory activates. Like of course you should still come to the May Day event that Silver Leaf is doing in Washington Square Park.”
“Right. I’m on the mailing list. But it still doesn’t change the fact that I don’t like your coven. I mean, our coven. Max and Nina have that annoying dog, and also he stabbed me with a sword that one time. And those twins are just too hard to deal with. And Gregor….” I trailed off.
Tammy had put her hands on her hips, and I noticed David had stealthy left the room. “Yes? What have you got to say about my boyfriend?”
“Well, he kind of tried to decapitate me,” I said, somehow with less conviction than I intended.
“He thought you were running around killing people. Besides, you’re human now. You have nothing to worry about.”
“I guess,” I said. “But maybe there’s something else I could do that’s more helpful. Something that’s elsewhere.”
“Em, remember ninth grade? We’ve been in this situation before where we don’t like each other’s boyfriends. We only got through that by breaking up with both of them, and I’m just not willing to do that again. You’ll have to get used to Gregor, even if you don’t like him.”
I stared at Tammy for a few minutes, until she realized what she had said. Her expression softened at the same time I felt my eyes well up with tears. As a human, I had always been quick to cry, and it seemed like that unfortunate ability had come back to me.
“Oh, I didn’t mean…I’m sure everything will work out with Alex.”
Not wanting to hear her talk about it anymore, much less run into the coven members, I turned and ran out the front door. Behind me, I heard my best friend call my name, but perhaps she had forgotten I no longer had my vampire strength, because she didn’t try to stop me as I ran out of the yard and down the block.
Chapter Thirteen
By the time I ran out of breath and had to stop running, I realized my cell phone was ringing. I stopped, practically gasping for air, and pulled it out of my purse. When I saw that it was Tammy, I decided to ignore it.
Then I stood there, phone in hand, and full of indecision. After a few minutes, when it signaled that Tammy had left me a voicemail, I called Alex. There was no answer, of course, as the sun wouldn’t set for another few hours. But nevertheless, I couldn’t help imagining him taking out his phone and deciding to ignore me, just like I had done to Tammy. His away message was just the default one that was pre-programmed on the phone, and I hung up right after the beep.
Trying not to think about the person who I had a somewhat satisfying relationship with until I had turned human proved harder than I thought, and before long I found myself on Queens Boulevard, a large street where all the major subway lines in the borough ran. As I walked down into the subway, I tried telling myself that I was just going into the city to walk around and maybe do some shopping.
For a while, that’s exactly what I did. Even though I had bought a lot of new stuff the past winter as a vampire, I now tried on a bunch of clothes in different stores, making my way downtown. When I passed a salon that was still open, I walked in and got a trim of my long, black hair. The undead may not get split ends, but I noticed I had a few. Then I proceeded to a waxing place, where I got my brows done, and a nail place, where I got a manicure and pedicure.
At some point during my self-pampering session, the sun had set. But I was enjoying myself so much that it was still a surprise when the woman who had done my polish changed the “Open” sign to “Closed.” A glance at the clock on the wall revealed it was almost 9 pm. Abruptly, I pulled my hands out from under the polish dryer.
“Late for a date?” The woman smiled at me.
I shook my head and quickly walked to the door.
“Be careful!” she yelled at me as I left. I knew she was talking about my nails not being quite dry yet, but in light of what happened later that night, her warning might have taken on a completely different meaning.
In any case, I walked out of the salon, again heading south. It occurred to me that I was hungry, since breakfast had been a hundred years ago, but my stomach feel queasy, so I just bought a soft pretzel from a street vendor and sat down on a park bench, eating it slowly.
Eventually, it dawned on me that I was in Washington Square Park, future site of the Beltane festival, and only a few blocks away from The Bank. My rhythmic chewing became slower as I realized I had already decided I was going to the vampire club.
What was I possibly hoping to accomplish? I wondered. Was I just here to update Alex on the situation, or was I desperate to see him?
A random thought occurred to me, one that I tried to dismiss, but couldn’t. So intense was my desire to see Alex that I wondered whether anything had happened the other night that I couldn’t remember due to being hypnotized. Not when Tammy was in the room with us, of course, but before that, when we were alone.
I got up and threw out the remains of the pretzel. Had Alex drank my blood when we were alone, and then instructed me to forget about it? It was possible, but was it something he would do? I couldn’t decide, but continued walking nevertheless.
The club was open and already had a line. A glance at the bouncer revealed that I didn’t know him, and I hoped he didn’t know me. However, the blonde woman standing in front of me did look vaguely familiar, but I just couldn’t place her. She was taller and thinner than me, wearing the least amount of clothing possible without getting arrested, and leaning against the wall texting on her phone.
This distraction kept me busy until it was almost my turn in line. I listened to what the bouncer asked the blonde, to make sure it was still the same.
“Do you belong to anyone?”
“Yes,” she answered immediately.
“His name?”
“Alex Thompson.”
Suddenly I could place her. She was the woman who was sitting on
the other side of Alex the first time I came to the club. At once I felt upset, nervous that she would recognize me, and hopeful that Alex was here.
The bouncer broke eye contact and said, “Here.” With that, he snapped a red wristband on her, and she walked past him and into the club.
Then it was my turn. “Do you belong to anyone?”
Hypnotized, I couldn’t control my response, but I heard myself say, “no.”
The vampire stopped holding my eye, and said, “Go ahead.”
I walked into the door that was behind him, quickly taking out the red wristband Alex had given me the other night and slipping it on before I got to the person who was collecting the cover charge. He too looked a bit familiar, but maybe I was just being paranoid. After all, the person in charge of the cover fee had been human the night I had come with Tammy.
As I fumbled in my wallet, looking for $10, he glanced up at my wristband and said, “Go ahead. No fee.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled automatically.
When I spoke, he looked up at my face and I saw that he was the very young looking vampire I had met in Michael’s office the night I had my first and only vampire status meeting.
After a momentary pause, he winked at me, just as he had done the first time we met. I considering running back out of the entrance, but one of the vampires would certainly catch me in no time. So instead, I forced myself to slowly turn and walk into the large, darkened room. Making myself take deliberate steps, I looked around to see if I could spot Alex. I even looked for the blonde, but she was already on the dance floor with a few other similarly-clad women.
Since the pretzel seemed to have made a permanent lump in my throat, I walked toward the bar, carefully looking around to see if I recognized anyone else. But it was too crowded, and I was still feeling a mild panic that was rapidly rising.
As I waited for the bartender, I took out my phone and texted Alex I’m in your club right now.
I hoped he would see it and come rescue me immediately. Even though I was wearing the wristband, I still felt fairly vulnerable.
When the bartender came over, I ordered a Diet Coke. My ability for reason seemed compromised enough for the night, and I didn’t want to throw alcohol into the mix.
