Jade sighed. “You’ll think I’m crazy, but I think he was a vampire.”
“How did you try to kill him?”
“I shoved a blade through his chest and pinned him to the wall.”
“Nope, still alive,” He replied gruffly.
“How do you know?”
“Have you seriously never watched a vampire movie? Well, most myths start somewhere in truth. Vampires can be killed but it's difficult. The older they are, the more difficult. You can cut off their head, or confine them to sunlight; both will kill them, though neither immediately. Holy water is just a deterrent, like suck head mace. It burns their eyes and skin, but they heal fast so you can't use it as a weapon alone. The only way to really take one down quickly is a stake through the heart. It has to be wood, or stone, though wood is easier to craft.”
“Why wood or stone, and how can you “confine” one to sunlight?”
“To become a vampire, the body must arise from the earth, and only natural things from the earth can kill a vampire. To confine them you can use silver to bind them, but a silver stake that has been purified, is no longer natural, so although it can hold them, it cannot kill them.”
“How the hell do you know all this?”
Gunny thought about his response. He simply couldn’t tell her the truth, it was too dangerous, for the both of them. Instead he chose the easy path.
“I kill them, twinkle toes, have been a long time. There are others in the fight, but only a few know the real truth. You just got caught in the cross fire.”
“Can you explain to me how I move so fast?”
“Can a dog piss on a fire hydrant? I can’t, I’ll get arrested.”
“Gunny?”
“Oh, yeah…Well, you see, like I said, it took your energy time to gather here. That’s because it had to travel from another realm, you see, one that belongs to souls. This realm here is for the living. So although you are here, with me, you actually belong in another realm with other… um… people like yourself. With access to both realms you can travel through ours by using theirs, and that realm doesn’t have the same rules and limitations as this one.”
“That sort of makes sense in a cartoon on crack kind of way. Wait, what about Derek, why do I need to watch him?”
“Cause they been watchin’ him. Watchin’ you. Watchin’ him some more.”
“Meaning?”
“The one whose party you went to, well you see he had been followin’ ya’ll before…you know. Last night he had one watchin' your apartment, or his, however you guys have worked that out. I got that one, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more.”
“Why don’t you watch him?”
“I can’t babysit, I need to figure out what they're up to, and I need to clear them out. I’m getting close I think.”
Reaching down Gunny grasped his leg, tugging and twisting at the straps. It just hadn’t fit right since his tussle with the moron dressed like a ninja.
“I’ll check in with ya when I can, or if I figure somethin' out, but I can’t watch him like you can. Though I don’t need much, I still sleep and have other needs. You can be with him all the time. You can protect him for the both of us until I figure out why they’re watching him.”
She appeared to finally be out of questions, mulling over the things he had told her. Ghosts were a squirrely bunch, walking through walls and shit. Never knew where they’d pop out of. Better if she just went along with what he had said and called it quits on the questions for a bit.
“Thanks, Gunny.”
She vanished.
Chapter Nineteen
He awoke with a start, as if something had jabbed him in the ribs or screamed in his ear. Looking about nervously he assured himself it must have been a dream already faded from memory. Sweat glistened upon his skin and his heart hammered in his chest as he sat up and swung his feet over the edge of the bed. Silently, Derek wondered if the events of the night before had been real.
Cautiously rising from the bed, he strode from the room somewhat unevenly, his head feeling a bit woozy. Stepping into the living room, it was just as he feared. A shrine stood upon one wall, erected from furniture and her belongings. He suddenly felt ill.
It was not the shrine that affected him negatively, it was the understanding that the night before something had truly wrecked his apartment. Their apartment. Something had deliberately singled out her belongings and broken them in a rage. A rage following his infidelity to the woman he loved but who was now lost to him. This same day Derek would watch as Jade was lowered into the earth, never to be seen again. His heart ached.
Looking to the window, he was happy to see that it was barely light outside. He walked to the kitchen and pulled a box of cereal from the cupboard and a half-gallon of milk from the fridge. Pouring himself a bowl of cereal, he popped the top to the milk and doused the dry contents in his bowl with….chunks.
A foul smell wafted into his nostrils and in combination with the ill effects from last night’s drinking, Derek leaned over precariously and wretched into the sink, dry heaving uncontrollably for many minutes. Grasping the edge of the counter to steady himself, he slumped to the cool floor. Though his eyes threatened to tear up he fought the urge, shaking his head and banging on his temples with his fists.
Jade had always seen to it that the milk was fresh, and there was food in the fridge. It was not that Derek was incapable of caring for himself, just that they together had a routine. It worked for both of them, it made life easier, and now it was gone. Every aspect of his life had grown to encompass her and now she was gone. The loss had left more than a hole in his soul. It had left a gaping wound in what was his entire world. Nothing would work the same now. Everything would be different.
After struggling for many minutes to overcome his emotions, he climbed back to his feet and dumped the bowl down the train, turning on both the water and the garbage disposal, careful not to breathe. Adding to the concoction, he managed to dump the remaining spoiled milk, as well. Choosing another bowl, he poured a second helping, already deciding on eating it dry.
Wolfing down the dry cereal, Derek was surprised to find how hungry he actually was. How long had it been since he had eaten? Days? Shaking his head at his own lack of self-care, he turned to go get dressed for the day, but something stopped him. Was it darker outside now than when he had awoken?
Panic gripped him tightly as his stomach began to knot. With his entire body suddenly lethargic, Derek stumbled to the window as the darkness outside spilled into his home squeezing out all the air. Pressing his face to the cold glass he watched as the streetlights began to flicker on. It was evening, not morning.
He had missed the funeral.
“Argh!” He screamed in anguish, knowing he would never again see her face. Never would he touch her skin and never would he smell her hair. Never in his God forsaken life would he hear her voice or feel her breath. He had sacrificed the last memory he would ever have of Jade to get drunk and have a one night stand.
For longer than he would admit, he stood at the window wallowing in self-pity. No matter how disgusted with himself he was, though, he resigned himself to visit the cemetery. Perhaps they were running late or had an equipment failure or something. Was it possible there was still a chance he could see her? If last night had taught him nothing else, he'd learned that anything was possible.
Crossing to his desk he snatched up a pen and a small post-it pad before scribbling a short note.
Jade,
Gone to cemetery.
Running late.
So Sorry.
Love you
--Derek--
Without further hesitation he stuck the note to the shrine and dashed into the room to dress quickly. In under twenty seconds he was on his way out the door, pulling a shirt over his head. Taking the flights of stairs in a pair of leaps, he made the ground floor in under two minutes and broke out into the street at a jog.
Maybe some of her friends or coworkers
had heard and had come to the funeral, delaying the actual burial. He pumped his legs harder and faster, refusing to move any slower than as fast as he was able. As night fell around him, Derek sought the alleys and roads that would lead him there the fastest, a route few would dare to take.
* * * * *
He hadn't even bothered to show up to her funeral. She had been there for hours, both before and after the scheduled time so she knew she hadn't missed him. Which meant he simply hadn't come.
Couldn't be bothered to come to her burial.
The only person in the world that she had loved, the man who was supposed to have felt something for her, if not love then at least affection, and he couldn't drag his ass out of bed or out of the bar. Either way, she was furious.
A first for her. In all the time she'd known Derek, they hadn't really fought. Even their “disagreements” had been more quirky conversations than actual arguments. Yet between the blonde bitch whore from last night and his obvious disregard for her today she might possibly hate him.
Jade sighed... she wanted to hate him. Better yet, she wanted to feel nothing for him. Nothing was always the safest bet.
But try as she might, she couldn't seem to find the nothing she was searching for. She was furious. The same kind of pin-his-ass-to-the-wall furious she had been earlier today.
Nik might have killed her physical body, but Derek... well, Derek was breaking her heart.
She wasn't entirely certain which was the less forgivable offense.
Jade walked toward the apartment, wishing she could come up with a better destination. Some errand she needed to run. Some other vampire she should be killing. Anything that would offer her a valid reason to delay the inevitable.
She had told Gunny she would watch over Derek. Unfortunately, right now she was afraid she would be a bigger threat to him than the vampires that may or may not be watching him.
At least, she thought that was what she was supposed to be protecting him from. Conversations with Gunny seemed to answer one question, only to create five more in its place.
Regardless of the perceived threat, she was still probably the greater danger. She was a new ghost who's energy was still whipping between two worlds, two planes. Energy which was directed by emotion.
Right now, that emotion was fury. There was a very real possibility that Derek would find himself flying through a wall or a door when she finally laid eyes on him again.
Another long sigh rolled out of her chest, a well of emotion looking for an escape. As happy as she'd been to meet Derek, to finally feel something, anything, again, she'd had enough emotion to last her a lifetime at this point. She would gladly settle back into numbness.
So, she dawdled... yes, ghosts can dawdle. She walked as slowly as she possible could, even by human standards, taking as long as possible to reach the apartment.
It was still too quickly to suit her.
Opting to simply walk through the door rather than swinging it wide and tipping Derek off that she was back, she glided into what used to be her living room.
But it no longer looked like her living room. Not even the disastrous mess she'd left in her wake early this morning. Derek had done... something.
There was a pile of everything... everything she'd owned, everything she'd destroyed or thrown about earlier. It was built into some strange tower against the wall. She knew that Derek's mind didn't quite work like the average person's, but this was odd even by his standards.
Why would he do this?
First taking in the overall effect, deciding on creepy as the best description, Jade began to look at the individual parts. It was all her clothes, pieces of furniture she'd broken last night, her bathroom products, broken coffee mugs she'd favored when she'd been alive... and right in the middle was a lime green sticky note.
Derek had gone to the cemetery. He hadn't abandoned her, he'd simply been running late.
Just as a bubble of hope started to rise, lifting from her toes and creating a warming sensation throughout her being, she remembered exactly why he was running late.
Blonde bitch. And alcohol.
She could forgive him for the blonde. Eventually. The alcohol, or at least the excess of alcohol, was more concerning to her.
She had seen firsthand what too much alcohol could do to a man, and to watch Derek travel that same path would be more than she could handle.
Maybe that was what she was supposed to protect him from.
The moment the thought occurred to her it felt absolutely right. She needed to protect Derek from outside threats, sure, as well as from her anger. However, she also needed to protect him from himself.
She looked around the apartment, noting all of the damage she had caused in her rage last night. Derek had managed to clean a large portion of it, probably a side effect of building his... shrine to her. Wouldn't it be nice if he could come home to a more... normal apartment?
That's what she would do while she waited. She would set this place to rights. She wasn't about to do anything as foolish as try to clean a toilet... there had to be some benefits to being dead after all, but she could return things to their normal places. Maybe, if Derek didn't have to deal with the remnants of her bout of crazy, he could focus on mourning so he could get on with his life.
That was the goal, right? To help him move on...
She knew that was the right thing to do, regardless of the pain that rushed through her entire soul at the thought of Derek moving on and forgetting her. It would hurt, undoubtedly, but she would help him let go.
Starting with this shrine.
Maybe then, she could move on as well.
* * * * *
Something about the meeting had felt unnatural to him. Something about the casket had been wrong. Perhaps it had been the interference caused by the energy that Jade was made of, but perhaps it was more. Feeling uneasy, as if there were more to the story that not even he realized, Gunny was forced to make a decision.
There was one man he knew he could ask about his hunch, one man who had helped him in his quest to kill the soulless bastards. Father Richard. Unfortunately the good father resided at St. Jude’s Anglican Mission up on West Hancock and that was one hell of a stroll for a grizzled vet with someone else’s leg.
In his gut he didn’t feel he had the time, though he needed more blessed holy water. At least he didn’t have to babysit Derek now. With Jade becoming more powerful, she would be able to warn him of danger if there was any.
Babysit? That was it. His gut was telling him to babysit.
Turning his shopping cart around mid block, Gunny began back in the same direction he had come. Somewhere over the course of the last couple of days the front wheel on his cart had developed a wobble. If that weren't bad enough, his knee had been squeaking the last few hours relentlessly. He wondered if the two were communicating and plotting against him.
“I dare you fuckers go ahead and try it, see what happens!” He yelled to the apparently vacant street.
Shaking his head he continued to hobble down the road, pushing the wretched cart, thinking about all the questions Jade had raised. Not the ones she had asked him, but the ones her appearance and abilities made him question.
Gunny knew souls. There wasn’t another person on the planet with as much soul experience as he. Except perhaps death, that greedy fucker was always messin’ with souls. Was he a person though? Did that count? Not important. The fact of the matter was he shouldn’t have more questions leaving the little impromptu meeting than he had coming into it.
Something was amiss and he planned to get to the bottom of it. Pulling a can of half-eaten sardines from his pocket, he nibbled as he returned to the cemetery to babysit. As if he didn’t have enough on his plate with all the sheep, dead sheep, fang heads, and shady shopping carts, and now fuckin’ ninjas, too. Disgusted, he pressed on, hoping to learn something worth his time.
* * * * *
He waited in the shadows, tucked in behind an oak tree at
least a hundred years old. Even now, though darkness had long since fallen, there were shadows created by the nearly full moon. In truth, it was nearly as bright as midday, though it was sneaking up on eight at night. The skies were unusually clear for a winter in Detroit. If Nik had been the sort to wax poetic, he would say this evening’s events had been predestined.
It shouldn't be long now. Though time had very little meaning to him, he had spent most of the day forcing his attention back to matters at hand. His mind had continuously wandered, drawn back to her like a moth to a flame.
"Sir, is everything alright?"
Startled out of his thoughts, he turned back to Alex. "Of course. Why wouldn't it be?"
"Well, I would think you would be well healed by now, and yet..."
Glancing down, he discovered he was absently rubbing his breast bone where the sword had pierced him. Though no wound remained, having healed while he slept today, he was still a bit surprised by her action. Not to mention his own reaction.
He couldn't stop the chuckle that bubbled up from within. He had been... impressed, fascinated, or maybe simply amused. Either way, he found Jade to be an absolutely delightful companion. He truly hoped that she rose successfully. He had been alone, having only one or two trusted friends, throughout his very long existence. He was lonely, and Jade was a breath of fresh air in his otherwise drab and dank existence.
"I'm healed, Alex. Just a little lost in the memory, I guess. She's really quite something, isn't she?"
"Uh, yes, sir. She is definitely... something."
His deep laughter rumbled through the still, silent cemetery. "That was very politically correct, Alex. You don't particularly like her, do you?"
"Sir, I'd really rather not talk about..."
"Knock off the sir bullshit, Alex. You and I both know that we're friends."
That drew a smirk from Alex. "Well, then... No. I cannot say that I truly understand the draw."
Beyond The Mask (The Beyond Book 1) Page 18
